Duty of Care
by Mintaka14
Summary: When the dust and smoke finally settled over what was left of Furinkan High School, it was fairly clear that it was time for Principal Kuno to enjoy an early retirement. The students find themselves dispersed to other schools in the district, and Principal Saito of Nerima High School finds himself in a series of disciplinary meetings with some very... unconventional... families.
1. There's something in the Furinkan water

**Duty of Care**

**A Ranma one-shot fanfiction**

**By Mintaka14**

When the dust and smoke finally settled over what was left of Furinkan Highschool, it was fairly clear that it was time for Principal Kuno to enjoy an early retirement. It was fairly clear to the local authorities that the retirement should take place in secure facilities and involve a thorough psychological evaluation.

Regardless, it was going to be impossible for classes to continue at Furinkan until the structural repairs and decontamination had been completed. That would take some time, and so the students of Furinkan found themselves dispersed to other schools in the district.

Principal Saito of Nerima High School pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the headache that seemed to be permanently lodged there now, and attempted to focus on the student file in front of him. There wasn't much to it; most of the information that would have been in the folder was scattered ash in the rubble of Furinkan High School. He stood, and wearily opened the office door.

The teenage girl sitting just outside his office was scowling down at the floor, the expression darkening her rather pretty face. The impatient jittering of one foot gave away her nerves, and at the sound of the door opening she looked up. Behind the scowl, Principal Saito could see a flash of something that looked like fear. He gestured for her to follow him into the office. The young man sitting next to her half-stood in an oddly protective move, but she turned a quick frown and a headshake on him, and he subsided again.

That would be the infamous Ranma Saotome, and Principal Saito's next problem, but right now he was focused on the girl.

"Akane Tendo," he said, taking his seat behind the desk. A thought suddenly occurred to him. "Related to… _Nabiki _Tendo?"

"She's my older sister," the girl admitted, and Principal Saito made a note in the files in front of him, pinching the bridge of his nose again.

"Now to business. I've called your father, and he'll be here soon to discuss things, but before he gets here I would like to hear your version of what happened this afternoon."

He raised a gently enquiring eyebrow, noting the way Akane's scowl deepened.

"Kenji said he wanted to date me," she said, a hint of belligerence in her voice, and again Saito had the sense that she was covering up a deeper reaction. He had the impression that this was a girl who would far rather be angry than afraid. Saito waited, bracing himself for the rest of the story. When the silence went on, his eyebrow lifted further.

"And did he… do anything further? Touch you? Threaten you?"

"He didn't get a chance," Akane responded darkly.

Principal Saito had a feeling he was missing something here.

"So Mister Nakamura asked you on a date," he said slowly, looking for clarification. Akane nodded reluctantly. "He didn't say anything further, or touch you in any way, and yet you broke his arm."

"I didn't hit him that hard."

"You broke his arm," Saito repeated.

"They don't stop unless you make sure they can't get up again."

Saito stared at the young student, open-mouthed, not quite sure where to go with that. The commotion in the hallway outside spared him from having to come up with a way of discreetly asking if the girl had been the victim of assault in the past, but he made another cryptic note in the file in front of him as his secretary ushered the new arrivals into his office.

At first glance, Soun Tendo looked like most of the parents Saito dealt with on a daily basis. Well-dressed, a little worn around the edges, in the kind of physical shape that indicated that he put some work into it, the long hair was unusual but not extraordinary. He was accompanied by a young woman who looked barely old enough to be out of high school herself, and what was unusual was the way she was guiding him, murmuring soothingly as if she were talking to a child.

Saito wondered for a moment if the young woman was his wife, or nurse, but Akane greeted her as older sister, and Saito took a closer look. On the surface, there was nothing to show their familial connection. The older girl, who introduced herself as Kasumi Tendo, had a calm patience about her that was nothing like Akane's vivid energy. Everything about her, from the ribbon tying back the pale hair that fell over her shoulder to the way she held herself in quiet stillness was a stark contrast with her younger sister. Looking closer, though, there was something in the set of the mouth maybe, or the hint of stubbornness about the chin, that linked them as sisters.

Akane, Nabiki, Kasumi. Saito made another note. He shot a surreptitious glance at their father as the elder sister steered him to an empty seat, and became aware that tears were rolling down the man's face.

"My Akane," he started sobbing, and Kasumi laid a gentle hand on his arm. She didn't seem surprised or upset by her father's emotional outburst.

"Now, daddy, I'm sure there's no need for that. Let's find out why Principal Saito wanted to see us."

"I've simply asked you to come in today to discuss a situation that occurred with Akane and another student earlier today. Akane admits that she broke Kenji Nakamura's arm, and according to both their versions of events it seems clear that Akane overreacted to an innocent situation. I'm concerned because that overreaction resulted in serious harm, and it could have been worse."

"I made sure I pulled my strike," Akane whispered guiltily. Her gaze had dropped to regard the floor intently, but Saito was startled at a sudden wail of what sounded like despair from her father. Soun Tendo had an arm flung over his face and seemed to be sobbing wildly.

"My little girl! Dishonour upon our house!"

Saito frowned.

"It's hardly that," he said drily, thrown a little by the reaction. "But while Akane may have misread Mister Nakamura's intentions, we take physical fights seriously, particularly when they result in the hospital."

He looked at the young girl. "The greater the ability in martial arts, the greater the responsibility you bear to control those abilities, and to use them wisely."

Akane sank deeper in her chair, her face flushing, but she nodded briefly.

"Would I…" she started, her voice faltering, then she tried again. "Could I… apologise to Kenji? Would they let me see him?"

Saito regarded her. At least Akane was aware now of the gravity of what she'd done, and seemed remorseful. He was still a little disturbed by the implications of where that instinctive, violent response had come from.

"I can certainly see if his parents would allow that. Or perhaps a letter would be appropriate, if they don't wish you to visit him. Now, our school policy mandates three days of suspension. After that, I'd like to speak to you again, Miss Tendo."

Akane bowed her head again, but didn't say anything further. Saito wasn't sure whether her father had heard any of that over his melodramatic sobs, and the principal rolled his eyes a little. He glanced at Akane's sister, who was still sitting in calm watchfulness just behind her father.

Saito frowned, and took a decision.

"Akane," he began, "why don't you take your father to find a glass of water?"

The dark-haired girl flashed him a look of confusion, but she didn't hesitate to help her father up. Saito waited until he was certain they were out of earshot before he turned to the elder sister.

"Miss Tendo, forgive me – you understand that with the recent events at Furinkan I have little information on your sister to go by – but I must ask. Does Akane have a history of abuse or assault?"

A shadow of a frown drifted across Kasumi's serene expression, but she watched him steadily, waiting for elaboration.

"She said something interesting earlier when I asked her about the incident with Kenji Nakamura. She said that 'They don't stop unless you make sure they can't get up again.' Does that mean anything to you?"

Kasumi's face cleared, and she gave a soft smile.

"Oh, my sister used to have to fight her way through the boys at Furinkan who wanted to date her. They could be very persistent."

Saito stared at her for a moment, but she didn't seem aware of having said anything odd.

"She used to have to fight the boys at school," he said slowly. Kasumi nodded and smiled. "All of them?"

"Oh no. There were only about fifty or so."

"Fifty?"

"Yes."

"Who wanted a date with her."

"Yes."

"And who fought her for it."

Kasumi gazed at him as if she was waiting to see where he was going with this.

"And this was every day?" Saito asked, still trying to get his head around this. "Didn't anyone try to stop these attacks? The teachers? Weren't there any injuries?"

"Well, some of the boys had broken bones or teeth, but mostly the school nurse dealt with them."

"What the hell is wrong with that school?!" Saito exploded, then reined himself in as Kasumi stared at him, startled. "What about Akane?"

"Akane? Oh, no. She rarely let them hit her. She's a very good martial artist," Kasumi explained. "Daddy's been training her since she was little. She's well able to take care of herself, and no one's tried to date her like that since Ranma came to Furinkan High."

Saito pinched at the bridge of his nose. That odd look in Akane's eyes made a lot more sense now. He mentally filed the curious comment about Ranma Saotome as something to be looked into later.

"She shouldn't have had to take care of herself like that. That such attacks on a student could happen at all, let alone go on, day after day, at any school…"

The former Principal Kuno had much to answer for. So did the entire teaching staff of Furinkan High School.

The older Tendo sister had her eyes fixed on her hands folded in her lap, another frown ghosting across her features. Her mouth tightened as if she was considering something in a new light, and she looked up at him again.

"Principal Saito, I know that Furinkan High School seems a little unconventional, and possibly even dangerous. But if we seem rather offhand about all of this, it's because things have a tendency to the … unusual… around our families. We are rather used to unconventional and dangerous."

"Families?"

"The Tendos and the Saotomes."

Before Saito could ask anything further, Akane and Soun Tendo came back in and Kasumi's attention shifted to her father again. There was little else to say, and Saito wrapped things up before there was another emotional outburst. Clearly, the three Tendo sisters didn't get their steel from their father, and Saito wondered whether the man had always been this way, or whether something had happened.

As they moved towards the door, Saito asked, "Akane may I have a further moment?"

"Sensei?" Akane glanced back at her sister. "I'll meet you back at home, Kasumi."

She settled back into her seat, looking apprehensive, and Saito tried to make his expression reassuring.

"I just wanted to let you know, Miss Tendo, that whatever may have been the situation at Furinkan, the attacks that you experienced there will never be tolerated here."

"I can take care of myself," she told him a little resentfully, as if he had criticised her.

"I am aware of that," he responded drily. "You are a very capable, strong young woman, and it sounds like you have considerable skill as a martial artist." Saito noted the way Akane's face brightened immeasurably at that. "What I am saying, however, is that you should have no cause to defend yourself so violently at Nerima High School, and we would take it very seriously if anyone gave you cause. Equally, I expect you to exercise self-discipline and respond to your fellow students fairly and reasonably, without excessive force. This is not Furinkan."

"If I waited for the world to be fair and reasonable, I'd be dead by now," Akane muttered. "Or married off to a monster."

Before Saito could respond to that, or even formulate the questions it raised in his mind, his secretary knocked on the door.

"Sir, the Saotomes are here."

Saito raised a hand in acknowledgement and looked back at the teenage girl in front of him.

"We'll continue this another time," he told her, and she stood, bowing, before she hurried out.

Through the door, Saito saw Akane look up at the young man with the black pigtail and the startling blue eyes who stood as she came out. She said something, and it looked like there was a quick, vehement argument going on before Akane folded her arms and dropped decisively into one of the seats near the door. Ranma threw his hands up in a sharp gesture, and turned away.

Saito had not yet had a chance to meet this student, but he had heard the rumours and gossip that circulated through the staffroom. He had dismissed most of it as exaggeration and ridiculous stories, but now he was beginning to wonder. Ranma had an intensity and a sense of controlled action about him that tended to draw the eye and dominate the space he filled, and the set of his muscled shoulders suggested that he was well able to handle himself. He carried himself with a careless assurance that should have been conceit in someone his age, but if even half of the stories about him were true then it was well-earned.

Right now, he was bristling with mistrust as he entered the office. A large, older man in a well-worn martial arts _gi _loomed behind Ranma, his arms crossed in impatient arrogance and the light glinting on his glasses as he swept the room with a glance, and it took Saito a moment to notice the slender woman behind Ranma's father. Her demure pose and dainty kimono almost distracted from the flash of steel in her eyes.

Good lord, was that a katana strapped across her back? That was Saito's first indication that this was not going to be a standard parent meeting.

"Mr Saotome, before we begin," he started, recalling a disturbance that had happened that morning, "I want to just remind you that whatever the rules may have been at Furinkan High School, Miss Shan Pu is not a student here and your girlfriend cannot be allowed to visit you on campus."

"She's not my girlfriend!" the young man growled, slumping into a chair, and Saito raised an eyebrow.

"Regardless, please let her know that should she attempt to do so again, I will call the authorities."

Saito thought he heard the boy mutter, "I wish you would." He chose to ignore it.

"I do thank you for making time to come here today," Saito turned to address Ranma's parents. "I wanted a chance to discuss Ranma's grades with you. With the university entrance exams coming up next year-"

"He doesn't need to waste his time on entrance exams when he should be training, because he's not going to university," Ranma's father growled, interrupting. "The only reason I agreed to break his training and let him go to school was so he and Akane could spend time together."

"And so his mother could see him," Nodoka Saotome reminded him in a quiet voice that could have cut glass. Genma flinched.

"That too."

Saito interjected, "So I take it that before Ranma came to Furinkan High School he was undergoing martial arts training with you?"

Genma turned a look of disdain on him, as if he'd just asked an abysmally stupid question.

Saito looked at Ranma. "Where were you before you came to Nerima?" he asked the boy, and Ranma put a hand to the back of his head, grimacing as he tried to think.

"It's hard to keep track," he admitted. "Dad took me to China for a while, before that we were all over the place."

"And did you go to school in that time?"

"Yeah, some." Ranma shrugged uncomfortably. "I didn't stay anywhere long."

"I see," Saito said thoughtfully. There was a long silence while he wrote a few details on the page in front of him. "China. That must have been interesting."

"You could say that," Ranma muttered darkly, shooting a black look at his father. "Between the cursed training grounds and crazy Amazons, it was definitely interesting."

Saito blinked. "Cursed training grounds?" he asked hesitantly.

"The Jusenkyo cursed springs," Ranma said in the weary voice of someone who had had to explain this far too many times. "A whole lotta springs, and if you fall into one you take on the form of whatever drowned there first. There're bamboo poles all over the place, and Pop here," he shot another dark look at his father, "thought it'd be a brilliant idea to train me there, trying to knock each other off the poles. Guess how long it took before we ended up in the water?"

"And you were… cursed?"

"Yu-p," Ranma said matter-of-factly, popping the last consonant.

Saito wanted to dismiss this story as impossible. He really wanted to ask what kind of father would take his young son out of school and all the way to China to inflict such extreme training on him.

He _really_ wanted to ask what the curse was, but he had the feeling that digging into Ranma's history would take a very long time, and his headache was getting worse by the second.

"And now that you're here at Nerima High School, what are your plans for the future?" Saito asked Ranma, trying to pull things back on track, but it was Genma who answered with a hint of belligerence.

"My boy's going to marry Akane the way Tendo and I arranged it. He'll take over their dojo and become the best martial artist that ever lived."

Saito leaned back in his chair a little, glancing at Ranma's mother to see how she was responding to the idea of her son dropping out of school to marry and teach martial arts, but judging from the look of approval that she turned on her husband she was on board with the plan.

"A true man among men," Ranma's mother said serenely, and Saito raised an eyebrow.

Of course, he'd dealt with driven parents before – stage parents, sports-mad parents, parents who were convinced that their child was a genius, parents who were living out their dreams in their children – but the Saotomes were something else.

"And is this what you want to do?" Saito asked Ranma, curious to see how the boy would respond.

Ranma glanced nervously at his mother – not his father, Saito was interested to note.

"Yeah," the boy said.

Saito waited.

"Yeah," Ranma said, more firmly. "I wanna teach martial arts, learn more techniques, and have my own dojo one day."

It sounded like he meant it.

"Not that whole getting married thing," Ranma added, as if he'd just reminded himself of a cue that he'd missed. "I mean, who'd want to get hitched to that uncute tomboy?"

Saito did not miss the way Genma Saotome reached out to cuff his son, or the way Nodoka Saotome's hand lifted to touch the hilt of her katana. Ranma subsided into his seat.

Saito was thinking fast. The mention of an arranged marriage was not the most important issue to deal with at the moment, although it would bear thinking about later. Akane and Ranma obviously had more than a few issues with their families to deal with. But Saito had to stay focused on the main problem at hand.

Clearly, their son's academic results were of little interest. Genma, in particular, seemed to see anything that kept his son from devoting himself wholly to training as contemptible. But Saito's first duty of care was to the boy, and the boy would need more than martial arts if he didn't want to end up an illiterate, frustrated thug. How, though, to convince Ranma's parents to support his studies?

"Some level of academic achievement may be necessary," he tried. "Qualifications in teaching, promotion of the dojo, the bookwork and accounts…"

"That's women's work. His wife will take care of that," Genma cut Saito off dismissively, missing the flash of fury that Nodoka turned on him.

"And that would be Akane Tendo," Saito clarified, trying to reconcile the angry, stubborn and, above all, forceful young lady he'd just met with this meek idea of dutiful wifehood.

There was a predictable explosion from Ranma, as he turned on his father.

"I ain't marrying that tomboy! Or anyone else you've got me engaged to!"

"You'll do as you're told boy," his father growled.

Saito leaned forward on his elbows, wondering if there was going to be a physical fight and marvelling at the sheer stupidity of the whole situation. It hadn't taken him more than two minutes with Ranma and Akane to realise that trying to push either one of them into something was only going to result in intractable resistance, particularly given Akane's history with the boys at her school. So how on earth had their parents thought that springing a forced engagement on them would work out?

Ranma's resistance to the arranged marriage was particularly interesting in light of his protective concern for Akane in the hallway. This was getting more complex by the second, and Saito noted Ranma's reference to other engagements, but he set his questions aside to focus on the main problem for the time being.

Nodoka Saotome cleared her throat, and her husband and son simmered down, bristling but silent as they took their seats again. There was a good chance he could persuade Ranma's mother of the value of her son's education, but her husband was going to be a trickier prospect.

What would possibly change the mind of someone who had gone to such extreme lengths to make his son the greatest martial artist ever?

An idea occurred to Saito.

"Perhaps," he said with a careful note of doubt in his voice, "it is best if Ranma stick to martial arts rather than _competing_ for good grades. After all, the chances are he would never _win_…"

He broke off there, cautious not to overplay his hand. It would be too much to say that Genma showed signs of wavering, but his eyeglasses flashed at the word _win_, and Saito felt hopeful. More importantly, Ranma was leaning forward in his seat, his face alight with a sudden fire. It seemed that Saito had gauged this boy with some accuracy in assuming that he would see it as a challenge to be met rather than letting the words undermine his confidence.

Principal Saito made a few more notes in Ranma's student file. This was a good beginning, but there were going to be a lot of challenges in working with this young man. A _lot_ of challenges, he thought, glancing at the boy's parents, but nothing worth doing was ever easy, especially in teaching.

He tactfully brought the interview to a close and stood, ushering Ranma and his parents out. As the Saotomes left the office, Akane jumped up from the seat where she'd planted herself to wait. Saito watched with interest as Ranma gravitated with a sort of inevitability towards her.

"You didn't have to wait," the boy growled, and Akane scowled again.

"Well, excuse me for being worried about you," she snapped back. "Stupid jerk."

"Tomboy."

There was a rhythm to the insults that sounded like they were a reflex, an ingrained habit, but Saito noticed the way their fingertips brushed as if they weren't even aware of it as they stood in each other's personal space, wrapped up in their argument. There were clearly far more complex dynamics going on here than he'd realised. He glanced at Ranma's parents, but they seemed to be oblivious to the undercurrents between their son and their friend's daughter.

Saito sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose again. Given what Saito had come to know about Ranma and Akane in the past hour, and given what he knew from twenty years of teaching teenagers, that misguided family engagement was probably the only thing keeping the pair apart right now. It was just as well that the Saotomes and Tendos had never thought to forbid Ranma and Akane to see each other, otherwise they would have had a runaway teenage marriage on their hands months ago.

He watched them all as they left, Ranma and Akane still bickering in an easy way as they followed Ranma's parents, and then Saito headed back into his office, allowing himself to drop into his desk chair with a groan. He stared at the wall, his eyes unfocused, wondering if there was something in the water around Furinkan High School that made everybody crazy. Eventually he shook himself and pulled the two student folders towards him.

"Miss Watanabe!" Saito called, and his secretary leaned around the edge of the door.

"Sir?"

"Please organise a thorough schedule of tutoring in all subjects for Ranma Saotome," he requested, his pencil tapping absently on the folders in front of him. "And book Akane Tendo in for an appointment with the school counsellor."

He stared down at the student records, frowning, as he tried to think through the encounters with his students' families. "And brochures for Hokkaido University, if you would, Miss Watanabe. Two brochures."

His secretary raised an eyebrow. "Hokkaido? But that's so far away."

"Yes," Saito said thoughtfully. "Yes, it is. And they offer martial arts sports scholarships."

When nothing else was forthcoming, Miss Watanabe turned to go.

"Remind me to contact Araki-san and Honda-san," Saito said abruptly, naming two fellow school principals in the district. "They've had to deal with the Furinkan students. I'd be interested to hear their impressions."

His secretary nodded and moved to leave again, then paused. "Oh, and I have one of the new senior students here, a Tatewaki Kuno. He's demanding to see you, sir. I told him you were busy, but he insisted on waiting."

The pencil Saito was tapping froze.

"Wait, did you say _Kuno_?"

"Yes. Shall I send him in?"

Saito could feel the headache begin to throb behind his eyes.

"Fine. Why not?" he sighed, and his secretary turned to go.

"And get me a whisky," Principal Saito added. "A large one. I think I'm going to need it."


	2. The Cute One

**Duty of Care: The Cute One**

**by Mintaka14**

Principal Saito of Nerima High School steepled his fingers in front of him and gave the student on the other side of his desk a measuring look. She flipped her long brown hair back over her shoulder, trying to look unconcerned, but he wasn't fooled.

"We are having some difficulties getting hold of your…" Principal Saito looked down at the student files and frowned. "Parent? Your guardian? Do you have an alternate contact number, Miss Kuonji?"

"Oh, they… he… can be hard to track down," she said with studied casualness. "He… they're working right now. All over the place. Sometimes the phone is switched off so they're not disturbed."

Saito narrowed his eyes. Something wasn't adding up here.

He picked up his pen and said firmly, "Perhaps you could clarify your guardian's details for me? Our records from Furinkan High School are a little patchy, and under the circumstances we do have to notify your legal guardian."

The name and details that Ukyo Kuonji rattled off were a little too glib, but Saito dutifully noted them down before calling in his secretary and handing them over to her. He had added instructions to the bottom of the sheet, and he could see his secretary's eyes widen just a little as she read them.

"Let me know one way or the other," he advised her. She gave him a brief nod of acknowledgement and left, and Saito turned back to the girl watching him antagonistically. "While we're waiting for Miss Watanabe, how about we discuss what happened in your classroom today?"

"Fine," Ukyo huffed, her tone bordering on nervous insolence. "When can I get my spatula back?"

Saito turned to stare at the huge metal paddle leaning against his office wall. It looked more like an industrial part than a cooking implement, and Saito had found, when he tried to lift it, that it was both massively heavy and wickedly sharp.

"It is school policy that any weapons brought onto campus will be confiscated and handed over to the police, so you would have to take that up with them."

"The police!" Ukyo said in dismay. "But it's not a weapon!"

"You attacked Akane Tendo with it," Saito pointed out drily.

"I didn't hurt her." Saito couldn't tell if the exasperation in her voice was for him, or for the fact that she hadn't hurt the other girl.

"You broke the classroom window with it."

Ukyo shifted uncomfortably.

"And the wall." Saito put his pen down and rubbed his forehead. There was that headache again. "Do you have any idea of how much structural damage you did to the school?"

"But I need the spatula for work," she said in a small voice, and Saito sighed.

"That is a matter for the police to discuss with you now. You will also have to talk to them about the reckless endangerment of your fellow students and wilful damage to public property. Before they get here, would you care to explain to me exactly why you felt the need to attack Miss Tendo with a dangerous weapon?"

"She was hugging Ranma-honey," the girl muttered sullenly, and Saito raised an eyebrow. He spared a brief flash of interest for the news that Akane and Ranma seemed to have put their bickering aside for long enough to embrace, and focused on the main point.

"And did Mister Saotome object to Miss Tendo hugging him?" Saito asked.

"He's _my_ fiancé!" Ukyo fired up.

"I see." Saito subjected her to a long, measuring look. "When did Mister Saotome propose to you?"

Ukyo's eyes slid away to fix on the floor.

"He- I- Our parents arranged it," she muttered.

"I see," Saito repeated. He sighed.

"I've had some cause to look into the legalities of underage arranged marriages recently," he said drily, "and you should be aware that unless you and Ranma _both_ agree to this arrangement, it has no legal standing whatsoever. No matter how much pressure your parents bring to bear, they cannot force either of you into marriage."

Not for the first time, Saito found himself questioning the sanity of the families involved. Who on earth would arrange not one but multiple marriages for their child?

"Has Mister Saotome told you that he wants to be engaged to you?" he asked.

Ukyo's eyes welled up, and she turned her head away.

"He said I'm the cute one," she whispered, and Saito felt a pang of sympathy for the young girl. Not that she was not, objectively speaking, attractive, but he would have bet good money that if Ranma had called her cute then it was purely to get a reaction from Akane Tendo. The boy was as single-minded in his unacknowledged interest in Akane as he was unaware of the feelings of anyone else.

"Be that as it may," he said a little more gently, "there are ways to discuss and handle your relationships, and those ways don't involve threatening anyone or destroying school property."

There was a gentle knock on the door, and Saito's secretary opened it.

"Excuse me, sir, I have the information you requested." Her raised eyebrow suggested that he had been right, and that the details Ukyo had given him were all false. It didn't prove anything, but it would need further scrutiny, and the girl was going to have a harder time brushing off the police enquiries into her background, now that they were involved.

"Thank you, Miss Watanabe," he said, and stood, ushering Ukyo towards the door.

"Once you have spoken to the police, Miss Kuonji, we will speak again. We will need to discuss reparations, and what will happen from here. And we will need to locate your legal guardian."

She was looking a little scared as he guided her out to the reception area to wait, and Saito retreated back to his office, pinching at the bridge of his nose to hold back the burgeoning headache.

"Miss Watanabe?" Saito called, and his secretary appeared at the door. "I think we should have Welfare look into Miss Kuonji's living arrangements. Something isn't added up there."

His secretary nodded, and turned a look on the paddle leaning up against the wall. "What do you want to do about that, sir?"

"The police have been notified. They're sending someone to collect it, and to speak to Miss Kuonji."

His secretary turned to go.

"Oh, and ask Ranma Saotome if there are any further fiancées we should know about, for our files," he added drily. "I'll take a whisky, no ice, when you have a moment."

Miss Watanabe disappeared, and returned a moment later. She handed him a glass full of green sludge that definitely didn't look like the whisky he'd requested. He eyed it with some distaste.

"You've been drinking far too much recently," she told him disapprovingly. "Your wife told me to give you this."

He had just taken a tentative sip when a thunderous crash came from the direction of the front gate, sending them both hurrying to the window. Saito stared in disbelief at the hairy, tentacled ox… thing… bellowing in the wreckage of the school gates.

Saito glanced down at the glass in his hand.

"I don't suppose this stuff has hallucinogens in it?" he asked tentatively.

His secretary shook her head, her fascinated gaze still riveted on the scene outside. He handed her the glass and she took it without looking at it.

"I think you should replace that with the whisky now," Saito said, and Miss Watanabe nodded. She was looking rather pale and dazed. "And help yourself to a drink too. I think we both need it."

His secretary nodded again, and this time it was a bit more enthusiastic.

"And after you've contacted the building contractor about repairs to the classroom, and the school gates, find me everything you can on Jusenkyo and Chinese curses relating to springs," Principal Saito added grimly. "I think we're going to need that, too."


	3. The Lost Boy

**Duty of Care: Lost Boy**

**A Ranma fanfiction**

**By Mintaka14**

The clouds were beginning to gather and the sky was turning dark as Principal Saito crossed the courtyard and reached the staff carpark. He hefted the stack of books and papers in his arms, trying to find the keys in his pocket before the storm broke, and looked up to see a young man standing in the middle of the carpark.

He clearly wasn't a student. The scruffy tunic had seen better days, and his yellow and black bandana held back shaggy dark hair that was badly in need of a cut. He had a red bamboo umbrella strapped to his backpack, and it looked as though he'd been camping rough. The boy turned slowly on the spot, looking confused as he took in the cars and the school buildings.

Saito stopped, watching the young man for a moment.

"Can I help you?" he eventually asked guardedly. The young man turned to him abruptly, and in two steps he clutched at Saito's coat.

"Where is this?" he asked wildly, and Saito leaned back. The young man was strong, and Saito prised the crazy guy's fingers off his lapels with some difficulty. He stepped back out of reach.

"Lay hands on me again, young man, and I will call the police," Saito said coldly. The scruffy boy ignored him.

"This isn't Furinkan High. Where am I?"

Furinkan High School again. Saito took another cautious step backwards and surreptitiously adjusted the stack of books so that he could throw them as a distraction, or clobber the boy with them, if he tried anything violent. Overhead, the sky rumbled with approaching thunder.

"This is Nerima High School, and you are trespassing," Saito used the tone of voice that made junior students tremble and seniors leap to obey. The boy barely registered.

"Nerima?" The boy turned again, as if looking for something familiar. "Why am I here?"

They both looked up at the sudden flash overhead, and the rolling boom that followed hard on its heels. As the first drops of rain hit the ground Saito heard the young man swear.

"Oh crap!"

The boy started to run towards the school buildings, shoving past Saito so that the principal stumbled, dropping everything. The rain came down harder, starting to soak the ground in dark patches, and one moment Saito was watching a running boy, the next there was a black piglet in a bandana scampering for the cover of the school doors.

"Oh, no, you don't," Saito growled, and grabbed for the piglet, hoisting it up in one hand before it could escape him and disrupt the school. Saito had read about the Jusenkyo curses. He had researched them, and the springs they came from, in some detail recently, but seeing what he had to assume was a Jusenkyo curse in action was something else entirely. The rain was running down his hair in rivulets and soaking his coat now, but Saito ignored the discomfort to turn a measuring frown on the little creature, and its piggy eyes went wide under the scrutiny. It gave a squeal, its little legs scrabbling at air.

The sound attracted the attention of a group of students hurrying past under umbrellas, and one of the umbrellas paused.

"P-chan?" The umbrella tilted back, and Saito could make out Akane Tendo's startled face. The girl glanced back at her friends, obviously telling them not to wait for her, and she hurried over. "P-chan, what are you doing here?"

"You know this… pig?" Saito asked her dourly, and she nodded.

"Yes, sir, but I don't know how he found me here."

"So he was looking for you?" Saito handed the soggy piglet over. "Miss Tendo, as I have already reminded Ranma, you cannot have your friends visit you at school if they're not students here themselves, no matter what form they're in."

The girl was staring at him blankly, the piglet wriggling in her hold, and it was obvious that she had no idea what he was talking about.

Saito sighed. "I assumed, given your family's familiarity with the Jusenkyo curses, that you were aware of the Spring of Drowned Pig." He'd rolled his eyes when he'd come across that one on the map he'd downloaded. The Spring of Drowned Yeti-Riding-an-Ox-Carrying-Crane-and-Eel would have strained his credulity to breaking point if he hadn't seen the cursed creature destroy the school gates himself. "But it was truly fascinating to see the Jusenkyo transformation in action."

Akane stiffened as her expression shifted from confusion to dawning awareness. She touched the tiny yellow and black bandana around the pig's neck as if she were seeing it for the first time. She sucked in a deep breath.

"You pretended to be my _pet_," she hissed at the pig on a note of gathering horror. "I _told you things._ I _cuddled _you."

Saito had the feeling that she'd forgotten he was there. He needed to remember to discuss this development with the school counsellor, particularly given Akane's boy-issues.

The piglet squealed, and almost wrenched itself free of Akane's hold, but she pulled him back.

"Oh, no, you don't," she said ominously. "We're going to have a little chat, _Ryoga_."

Saito cleared his throat, and Akane jumped at the sound.

"Perhaps you could have that chat elsewhere," he suggested. "School is over for the day."

"Yes, sir," she said, her voice sounding oddly strangled, and she gave a sharp little bow before she turned on her heel. It almost looked like the air around her crackled with black lightning, and the piglet's feet were scrabbling at air in good earnest now as Akane stalked away with him tucked firmly under her arm.

Saito decided that unless it happened on campus, he really didn't want to know what Akane was going to do next. If that young man… pig… whatever had truly kept her in the dark while acting as her pet then he was due for a bit of a shake-up. Such a violent, vague and undisciplined young man… pig… too, grabbing at a school principal like that. He still couldn't believe that Akane had managed to miss the signs that there was more to her pet than pork chops.

Saito smoothed back his sopping hair, and his mouth thinned into a flat line as he bent to peel off the papers stuck to the wet asphalt. Most of them were beyond saving now, but he wouldn't leave the litter there.

As he straightened, he made a mental note to make sure the staff were all covering the critical thinking and clear observation components of their curricula with extra vigour. The students were going to need it, if they had to deal with the Furinkan brand of crazy for much longer.


	4. The Black Rose

**Duty of Care: The Black Rose**

**A Ranma fanfiction**

**By Mintaka14**

The Nerima High School gymnasts and the visiting team were stretching or watching the first round of the friendly tournament, and Principal Saito was making small talk with the principal of the visiting school when the loud speakers announced the final competitor of the round.

"…_the Black Rose of St Hebereke, Kodachi Kuno!"_

Saito broke off in the middle of his anecdote to swivel around and stare at the young woman stepping with confident arrogance into the centre of the floor, a red ribbon spiralling around her with a casual flick of her hand. She flung up an arm, certain that all eyes were on her as she posed dramatically and let loose a vapid and rather terrifying laugh.

"Did they say Kodachi _Kuno_?" Saito asked Principal Edo apprehensively.

"Oh, yes," the older woman said. She reached up to brush at her greying hair with an oddly nervous gesture. The woman seemed too timorous and nervy for the head of a prestigious girls' school. "Our top gymnast. Perhaps you've heard of her?"

"Kuno," he repeated. Edo gave him an uncertain glance.

"Are you feeling alright, Saito? You're looking a little pale."

"Fine, I'm fine," he muttered, and surreptitiously pulled out his phone. While Edo turned back to watch Kodachi Kuno take her place for the start of her routine, Saito sent a hasty text to his secretary – _Check insurance policy on school gym re: damage inflicted by third party._

The music started, and the dull roar of voices in the gym settled to a hiss of occasional whispers and giggles as Kodachi commanded attention. She really was very good – even Saito's uninformed eye could tell – but he gripped the arms of his chair a little too hard as he found himself bracing for the crazy to start.

It began the moment the judges held up their final scores, and Kodachi tilted her chin, accepting the acclaim as her rightful and inevitable due. Her gaze swept imperiously across the bleachers and was caught.

"Ranma-sama!" she called, and it echoed off the rafters of the gym as she bounded gracefully towards him, trailing her ribbon like a red wave. Saito groaned. Of course it would be Ranma.

He pushed himself to his feet as the gymnast flung herself at the dark-haired martial artist and the friends Ranma was sitting with scattered.

"Gerroff me!" Ranma was saying as Saito climbed the bleachers towards him.

"Another fiancée you've forgotten to tell us about?" Saito asked sardonically, and the boy made a strangled noise as he attempted to peel the gymnast's arms from his neck.

"She's _not_ my fiancée!" he growled, as Kodachi relocated her grip and wrapped her arms around him tighter.

Saito could see Akane Tendo stalking towards them, anger rising off her like steam, and he caught at her arm as she drew closer.

"A little restraint, Miss Tendo," he said in a steely voice that cut through her temper. The girl drew a quick breath, and another. He kept his steadying hand on her arm until he saw her fists uncurl. "Mister Saotome has enough to deal with at the moment without anyone adding to the quite unnecessary drama."

Akane stepped back, but her gaze was still fixed on the wrestling match that seemed to be going on.

Saito threw a quick glance in the direction of St Hebereke's principal, but Edo didn't seem about to step in and deal with her lead gymnast harassing a Nerima student. In fact, her gaze was firmly and deliberately fixed on the rafters of the gym. Saito gritted his teeth, and stepped in, wedging himself between Ranma and Kodachi, forcing her to break her hold and back up.

"That's quite enough of that," he snapped.

The gymnast tried to dodge past him, but Saito kept himself firmly in her way.

"This is your first warning."

Kodachi let loose another of those strange laughs.

"Oho, Ranma-sama! Will you allow this foul miscreant to come between us?"

"There is no _us_!"

"'Foul miscreant'?" Saito said incredulously. He turned a scathing look on Principal Edo, who finally hurried over, her face creased with anxiety.

"Now, Miss Kuno," the woman said placatingly, "isn't it time to get ready for the next competition?"

Kodachi swivelled, her eyes narrowing as she took in the way she was boxed in by the principals and separated from her prey. She came to a stop, fixing on Akane who stood off to the side, watching everything warily.

"You," Kodachi said dangerously. "You think you can keep my darling Ranma from me."

Saito had no idea where the bouquet of black roses came from – she certainly couldn't have had it stashed in that skin-tight leotard of hers - but the moment Kodachi flourished the flowers Ranma and Akane backpedalled fast, their faces buried in their sleeves as a cloud of white powder puffed into the air as if they'd been expecting it. Saito noticed that the St Hebereke students and staff were already hitting the floor or running for the doors, and a Nerima student who had been standing a little too close caught a faceful of the powder and crumpled to the floor with a dreamy smile.

The powder drifted and eddied through the air of the gym.

"Evacuate!" Saito bellowed over the rising panic. "Follow your teachers to the designated evacuation points. Stay calm, cover your mouth and nose, and head for the doors!"

Ranma, his mouth firmly closed and his cheeks going red as if he were holding his breath, had ducked into the drifting cloud to scoop up the comatose student, and Saito saw him make it to the open doors with Akane close on his heels. Saito pushed a nearby teacher into action, herding students in front of him towards the exit as he covered his nose with his arm and waded towards the fire alarm.

Students were streaming from the gym as the alarm rang out across the school, and some were staggering sleepily. Saito pulled out his phone and quickly dialled the emergency number, filling in the operator, and he was assured that help was on the way. He could still hear that manic laugh over the chaos.

"Ranma-sama!"

He turned to locate the threat, and there was Kodachi Kuno vaulting over the bleachers in the gym, the bouquet still in her hands. Somehow she was still going, even as the last motes of white drifted around her.

The last of the students were out of the gym now as Kodachi bounded through the doors. Saito raced out after Kodachi, sparing a glance to make sure that his staff had things in hand and that the victims of Kodachi's roses were being looked after, but his first duty was to see the threat to his students stopped. He felt wildly out of shape as he panted to a halt. Kodachi leaped overhead to the top of a building, balancing on the eaves as she scanned the courtyard.

Out of the corner of his eye, Saito saw Ranma come up beside him, and Kodachi zeroed in on her quarry.

"Alright Kodachi!" Ranma called out. "I'm here. Come and get me!"

"Stay back!" Saito told Ranma as the gymnast unleashed another disturbing laugh that echoed across the rooftops. "The authorities will be here soon."

Ranma made a curt sound. "They won't be able to take her down. It's gotta be me, and I've gotta do it before she turns those tricks of hers on anyone else."

This was a side of the Saotome boy that Saito hadn't seen in action before. His intense blue eyes were focused narrowly on Kodachi, and he seemed to be measuring the situation with the experienced awareness of a master. Saito could hear the faint wail of sirens in the distance.

"Get everyone away from here, and leave her to me," Ranma ordered, and Saito found himself reacting instinctively to the command in his voice before the fact that Ranma was a student caught up with him. Announcements rolled out over the school, calling students to remain in their classrooms, to follow their teachers' directions, to stay calm, but Saito could see crowds of faces at each of the classroom windows, watching the drama outside with eager curiosity.

"Come to me, Ranma-sama!" Kodachi called. "Let us leave these peasants behind us and celebrate our love!"

Saito heard Ranma mutter under his breath, "Not a chance."

"Hey, Kodachi!" Akane's voice echoed around the courtyard, and Ranma's head whipped around at the same time that the gymnast focused on her. "Ranma wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole!"

"What are you doing, stupid?" Ranma hissed, but Akane's eyes were fixed on Kodachi.

"You need her distracted, dummy," Akane threw back at him in an undertone. "If she's mad and her attention is split, then she's going to make mistakes."

"And you're going to get hurt!"

Akane made a dismissive noise. "I can look after myself. Watch out!"

The gymnast was bounding towards them, her ribbon cracking in the air like a whip and a glare that could have stripped paint was focused on Akane. Saito watched Ranma give up on the lost argument, circling away as Akane headed in the opposite direction. Kodachi's attention flickered between her two targets as they drew her away from the students and teachers watching in avid interest.

Ranma took advantage of Kodachi's distraction, and knocked the roses out of Kodachi's hand in a flurry of petals and powder. Saito was quick to strip off his coat and fling it over the bouquet, bundling it out of reach before Kodachi could reclaim it. Kodachi was fast and cunning, ricocheting off trees and walls as she chased after Akane, but with every insult and taunt that Akane threw at her, her attacks grew wilder and less controlled. Kodachi snapped her ribbon at her rival, and Saito saw whole branches shaved off trees by the red streamer, but Ranma closed in and blocked her with effortless assurance.

Saito, replaying the scene in his mind later, still couldn't pick the fraction of a second when Ranma made the decisive move, but one moment the air was a blur of movement, and the next Kodachi was trussed up like a chicken in her own ribbon.

The change from focused, powerhouse martial artist to put-upon teenage boy was equally rapid as Ranma seemed to swiftly forget about the fight and his defeated foe to take up the argument with Akane again.

"Whaddaya gotta do stupid, dangerous stuff like that for all the time?" he was almost whining. Akane ignored him, turning as the school filled with a cacophony of sirens and strobing red lights. Patrol cars burst open and helmeted police in riot gear spilled out, all shouting and demanding that everyone freeze and keep their hands in the air. "I had it under control."

There was a confused milling, and the riot squad didn't seem to know what to do with the sight of their target bound like a birthday gift in red ribbons. Finally, two policewomen took her into custody and shepherded her towards the patrol car. Kodachi's laugh drifted back to Saito, and he heard her telling all and sundry to keep their peasant hands off her person.

Several ambulances had arrived as well, and Saito spared enough attention to make sure that the students hit with the powder were being treated, and that his teachers had things well in hand.

He had forgotten the bundle in his hands until a senior officer approached him.

"Principal Saito, we'll need to take a statement from you in due course. Has the weapon been secured?" she asked, and Saito unfolded his coat, being careful to not disturb the remains of the roses and the white powder. The officer stared down at the contents of his coat in disbelief.

"Roses?" she asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

Saito sighed. "You have no idea. We don't know what the powder is yet.

"It's just a sleeping powder," Principal Edo said. "It will wear off in an hour or so."

Saito turned slowly to stare at her. "What?"

"No one ever has any lasting effects," she added defensively.

"You mean she's done this before?!" Saito shrieked, his tact deserting him. He took a deep breath as students turned to look at him in alarm. Another deep breath followed, and another.

"Her uncle is on the school board, Saito. Her grandfather practically owns the prefecture." Principal Edo gave a nervous shrug. "And she's our top gymnast. Do you have any idea what it would do to the school if we expelled her?"

Saito stared at the cringing principal of St Hebereke's Girls School. His head turned to take in the bank of ambulances and the paramedics dealing with comatose and reeling students, and the ranks of evacuated teenagers and staff, then swivelled towards the gym that would have to be decontaminated, and back to the patrol car which was rocking gently as Kodachi fought indignantly to free herself. And he was rendered speechless.

The police cars and ambulances finally pulled out of the school grounds, abbreviated sirens breaking sporadically over the excited noise of the schoolyard as they set off in convoy. Saito directed the teachers back to the classrooms with the students who were still standing, and had a brief word with Ranma and Akane to make sure they were alright before releasing them back to their class.

As he reached the reception desk outside his office, his head pounding, he could see the phone lines already lighting up. Saito pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and retreated into his office before anyone could intercept him. He would need to deal with the police report, and the concerned parents, and informing the staff, and the million other details spawned by the drama, but right now he needed aspirin and five seconds of silence.

He got two.

Miss Watanabe came to his doorway with her usual impeccable efficiency, the official school statement already drafted and a sheaf of notes on which phone calls he would need to return urgently.

"I've spoken to the families of the students who have been taken to hospital and informed them," she told him. "You'll need to speak to them yourself, though. And I've scheduled a staff meeting for after school to fill everyone in on what happened and how we need to improve protocols."

In the background, Saito could hear the news repeating the breaking story of a potential bio-terrorist attack in a local high school. Miss Watanabe wordlessly handed him a whisky glass, and he downed the contents in one swallow.

"I need to have a talk with Ranma Saotome tomorrow," Saito muttered into his hands. "I need to discuss if he wants to press charges against that girl."

"Do you think he will?" Miss Watanabe asked.

"I doubt it." He sighed, and rubbed his temples. "But the possibility needs to be raised, and goodness knows his parents won't suggest it."

Miss Watanabe was watching him sympathetically.

"His mother will just treat it as a sign that her son is 'a man among men', and … well, you've met his father."

His secretary made a discreet face.

"Although I don't think Miss Kuno will be in a position to harass anyone for a while. This is going to mean serious criminal charges."

He sighed. "I suppose I'd better start on those phone calls."

His secretary just nodded, and pulled the door shut behind her.

"Miss Watanabe," he called, and she came back, leaning on the doorhandle with an enquiring look. "If I ever come in with a palm tree on my head, or start laughing maniacally, you have my permission to seek psychiatric help for me."

"I have a doctor on speed dial for just such an occasion," she said, and disappeared again.

Saito couldn't tell if she was joking or not.


	5. The Blue Thunder

**Duty of Care: Blue Thunder**

**A Ranma fanfiction**

**By Mintaka14**

Principal Saito watched Akane Tendo upend the mug of hot water over the red-haired girl in the too-big Nerima High School boys' uniform.

"Ow ow ow!" The treble voice dropped to a masculine complaint, and a puddle of water soaked into the office carpet around Ranma's feet. "Ow! Akane, that was boiling!"

"Quit complaining. It's all I could find in a hurry."

"Fascinating," Saito said, ignoring the bickering. He narrowed his eyes, inspecting the young man trying to wring the water out of his hair. Size, shape, hair colour were all different, but the eyes were the same, and the set of the jaw. If he'd seen the male and female Ranma side by side, he might have picked them as brother and sister, but once you knew about the curse, it was obvious that they were one and the same. Female Ranma moved with the same cocky assurance that male Ranma did.

But Saito put aside his interest in the curse to focus on the reason this pair of students were back in his office again.

"So," he said nonchalantly. "You punched a student into the wall."

There was an awkward silence.

"Both of you. Apparently the synchronicity was amazing."

Akane was biting her lip, and Ranma frowned darkly.

"Would you care to explain why?"

Akane glanced at Ranma and took a deep breath.

"Ranma got caught by a bucket of water, and then Kuno turned up…"

"Tatewaki Kuno," Saito cut her off, his voice flat, and Akane gave him a confused look. "Go on, Miss Tendo."

"He grabbed at us, like he usually does. I did ask him to stop," she said nervously. "We both did, but then he went after us with his bokken, and he never stops unless you put him down hard. We did try, but Kuno's so…"

"Psycho," Ranma muttered.

"Persistent," Akane said, shooting Ranma a dark look. "He wants to date me… us..."

"Both of you?" Saito asked a little incredulously, although he was starting to feel like he should be past feeling surprise at anything anymore. He glanced from Akane to Ranma, who had his arms folded and his mouth pressed in an irritated line. Akane nodded. "I take it he doesn't know about the Jusenkyo curse. Or is he interested in your male form?"

Ranma said, "Idiot," under his breath, but Saito assumed that he meant Kuno and not anyone present in the office.

Akane rolled her eyes. "He's seen Ranma change right in front of him, and he still thinks that boy-Ranma and girl-Ranma are two different people," she said in exasperation. "And he's totally obsessed with girl-Ranma and thinks that boy-Ranma has her under some sorcerous spell that he's going to free her from."

"Yeah, well, he was obsessed with you long before I turned up," Ranma grumbled, as if Kuno's interest was a personal insult.

"Kuno was the one who started the whole challenge thing in the first place at Furinkan," Akane explained with a grimace when Saito raised a questioning eyebrow. "He announced that he wouldn't allow anyone to date me unless they could defeat me, and after that I had to fight my way through half the boys in the school every morning."

Saito pinched the bridge of his nose. "I still can't believe that not one of the teachers at Furinkan even tried to put a stop to that dangerous nonsense."

Akane shrugged. "Kuno was one of the best martial artists in the school, and his father was-"

"A nut-job," Ranma interrupted under his breath.

"-the school principal," Akane finished. "No one was going to argue with him, and I gave up trying to talk the boys out of it when it was obvious that no one was listening to me when I said no. It was just easier to beat everyone up every morning, and at least it got me more practise."

Saito could tell from the tension around the corners of her mouth that Akane wasn't quite as sanguine about it as she was pretending to be. He rubbed at his temples and sighed.

"So let me get this straight. Tatewaki Kuno, who has a history of harassment and violence against you both, attacked you this morning with a weapon-"

"It wasn't like he could hurt us with it, even if he was any good," Ranma interjected, and Akane elbowed him. He shut up.

"Are _all_ of the Kunos obsessed with you?" Saito asked, lapsing into unprofessional exasperation as he wondered if he was likely to have any more of the clan turn up and cause havoc at Nerima High School. Ranma seemed to give the question some thought.

"Well, I don't think Principal Kuno was in love with either of us like that," Ranma said, and Akane gave a convulsive shudder at the thought, "although he was obsessed with cutting my hair."

Saito blinked, and chose not to pursue that thought any further. Principal Kuno wasn't likely to break out of secure psychiatric facilities to give Ranma a haircut… although given the way things seemed to happen lately, Saito was a little disturbed to find that he wasn't ruling the possibility out completely.

"Do us all a favour," he told the pair drily. "If you ever meet another Kuno, run. Run fast. I don't think the school can handle much more of this."

"It's not like we _wanted_ any of this," Ranma muttered.

Saito sighed again, and brought things back to the matter at hand. "I cannot fault you for defending yourselves, but you should have informed your teacher or another staff member when Mister Kuno attacked you."

Ranma shrugged. "Most of the school saw it all," he said indifferently. "I can look after myself."

"I'm sure you can," Saito said drily. "But at the very least, we need an official record of such incidents, particularly if they're a repeating pattern of behaviour."

He picked up a pen, tapping it idly on the edge of his desk while he thought for a moment. Eventually, he looked up at the two students watching him.

"Right. I'm going to need you both to write out statements of as much as you can remember, going back to when Mister Kuno first made threats against you. Every interaction you've had with him that you can remember, write it down. I'm going to need you to be as detailed as possible – dates, times, and witnesses, if you can – but I need this done before the lunch bell."

Akane nodded, but Ranma groaned.

"Writing," the boy complained. "Do we hafta?"

Saito fixed him with a stern look, and Akane elbowed him in the ribs, as Miss Watanabe opened the door and caught Saito's eye.

"Your next appointment is on his way," she said tactfully, and Saito nodded in acknowledgement.

"Get Mister Saotome and Miss Tendo here set up in the library with whatever they need for an official report, and contact their teachers to excuse them from morning classes, please. I would appreciate it if you could also find any staff or students who saw what happened this morning. I'd like as many independent eyewitness accounts as possible."

Miss Watanabe held the door open for the students, and Akane gave her a polite bow. Ranma, on the other hand, gave her a bright, friendly grin, and Saito was interested to observe the small smile that cracked the detached reserve of his secretary's expression. Ranma tended to have that effect on people, and if he kept grinning at the girls his own age like that, it wasn't hard to understand why he seemed to have so many of them following him around like love-struck geese.

Once the students were out of earshot, Miss Watanabe put the file she was holding on his desk in front of him.

"You should take a look at these, sir, before Mister Kuno arrives," she said, and flipped open the student file on a handful of photos. Saito leaned in, glanced at the top photo for a moment, and looked up at his secretary with a frown.

"They were found on Mister Kuno when he was taken to the infirmary," she explained.

He drew them closer, fanning out the collection to study them. Half of them were of Akane Tendo, and the other half were of the red-headed girl who had just transformed back into a boy in this very office. They were excellent quality photos, it must have taken a high-resolution camera to get them, but while they were all technically on the right side of modesty the photos were certainly suggestive. They were personal moments, and it was fairly clear that the subjects were unaware that they were being photographed.

Saito pressed his mouth in a tight line and gathered the photos up again, closing the file over them.

"And Kuno had those?"

Miss Watanabe nodded in confirmation.

"They fell out of his shirt when he was carried in to the infirmary. I've been trying to contact Mister Kuno's designated guardian," she told him. "Now that his father is legally incapacitated, it seems to be his uncle who is responsible, and I spent all morning trying to track him down."

Saito saw her mouth firm up in frustration.

"I take it that it hasn't been easy," he observed, and she directed a look at him.

"No, it has not," she said flatly. "The contact details we were given took me through four separate companies before I managed to get a hold of his secretary, and he _very_ politely, in diplomatic terms, told me that Director Kuno had no interest whatsoever in discussing his nephew's misdemeanours and that he would be unavailable for the foreseeable future for any meetings with the school. But we are welcome to forward any requests or paperwork to Director Kuno's legal team."

There was silence in the office for a moment, and Saito saw the disgust he was feeling reflected in Miss Watanabe's expression. He had a moment of pity for the boy who had been left to the mercies of an upbringing by legal representatives. That pity was somewhat diminished when the office door was flung open by the boy in question, who pushed past his secretary without so much as an acknowledgement or apology. Miss Watanabe left, rolling her eyes at Saito behind the boy's back.

Tatewaki Kuno entered the office with a flourish, his hakama swirling around his sandaled feet, and Saito thought briefly about pointing out that he wasn't wearing regulation school uniform, but put it aside to focus on the main issue. The young man was sporting a pair of black eyes that were just starting to colour nicely, leaving him looking as though he was wearing a bandit mask.

"Ah, you have reconsidered!" Kuno declaimed, posing in the doorway. "You will build a temple on campus that I may meditate upon the universe!"

"What? No!" Saito said, thrown by the non sequitur. He gestured firmly at the chair on the other side of his desk. "No, you've been sent here to discuss your attack on two students this morning."

"An attack? Never!" Kuno gave a condescending laugh. "I was but expressing my love for the beauteous Akane Tendo and the divine red-haired pigtailed goddess."

Saito was seriously tempted to break through all the nonsense and explain the Jusenkyo curse to young Kuno, but he decided that that was a conversation for Kuno to have with his eventual psychiatrist.

"You don't express love someone by charging at them with a bokken," Saito explained tiredly, with little hope that the young man in front of him would actually take it in. "Why, exactly, did you feel the need to express this… love of yours at eight thirty in the morning in the middle of the school grounds?"

"Ah!" Kuno sighed, pressing his hand to his heart. "As I gazed upon the images of my goddesses, I was struck with the compelling desire to reassure them of my eternal love."

Saito slid one of the photos out of the file and held it up.

"This image?" he asked, and for a moment he thought that Kuno was going to lunge over the desk at it. The young man was breathing a little harder, his eyes fixed on the photo.

"I must insist that you return those to me," Kuno demanded, and Saito tucked the photo back into the folder again, resting his hands firmly on top.

"Did you take those photos?" Saito asked. Kuno didn't respond, and there was an ugly, disturbing glint in his eye. "You can't take photos of someone without their knowledge or permission."

The glint was gone, and Kuno gave another of those annoyingly patronising laughs.

"Forsooth, I am but a patron of this exquisite art."

'Forsooth'? Seriously? Saito put aside the distraction.

"Who did take these photos?"

Kuno maintained an aloof silence, and Saito pinched the bridge of his nose. He'd deal with that question later.

"More importantly, you absolutely cannot use weapons or threats to force someone into dating you. That's sexual assault."

"You do not understand the nature of our love," Kuno said stubbornly.

"I understand that they had to pound you into a wall to get you to stop."

Kuno laughed again. "That is but the shy reserve of a maiden's coy fancy. By my gentle persistence I shall reassure them of the sincerity of my devotion."

Saito stared at him in disbelief. He'd had many encounters with young Kuno, of course – every day came with another demand for a temple, or a private dining chamber for the kendo club, or an outraged request to know _why_ he was being kept from the public announcement system – but this florid speech was something extra.

"They said no," Saito pointed out. He pulled his notes towards him, looking them over. "They said, and I quote, 'No. No way. I will never, ever, ever date you, not if you were the last creature on earth. Hell, no.' And then they both punched you in the face." He gestured at Kuno's blackening bruises, his usual tact and diplomacy slipping. "They beat you into a wall. I think they made it very clear that they're not interested in dating you."

Kuno gave another indulgent laugh that grated on Saito's nerves. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. After staring at the young man for a long moment, he leaned back in his desk chair.

"Out of interest," Saito said with a careful casualness, "what would it take for you to decide that Miss Tendo or… the pigtailed girl… were truly not willing to date you?"

The blank look on young Kuno's face didn't give him much hope.

"Such a thing were not possible," Kuno said in a tone that didn't brook disagreement. His condescending smile darkened into a black scowl. The bruises around his eyes didn't help allay the air of menace. "That foul sorcerer Saotome continues to befuddle their minds to draw them from me, but I shall defeat him and free them from his vile enchantments that they may come to me."

Saito suppressed his instinctive response, and started wondering if he should have listened to Miss Watanabe and installed a panic button under his desk.

Instead, he asked as calmly as he could, "So you intend to continue challenging Miss Tendo and the pigtailed girl in order to date them?"

Kuno inclined his head.

"And you intend to defeat Ranma Saotome?"

"Of course."

"Out of interest," Saito continued carefully, "how do you intend to defeat him?"

"I shall obliterate him from the face of this earth that his vile sorcery be extinguished," Kuno declaimed darkly.

"You mean, kill him?" Saito asked, with a growing sense of chill.

"Of course."

Right. That was the confirmation he needed. Saito left Tatewaki Kuno sitting bolt upright in his office, and took care to close the door behind him as he withdrew to the reception area. He didn't want to risk young Kuno overhearing this phone call, and potentially escalating the situation.

The police responded with admirable promptitude the moment that Saito mentioned the name 'Kuno', and he stood aside as Kuno was escorted from the building.

"I've contacted your uncle's lawyers," Saito told him. "They'll meet you at the police station."

Kuno turned to give him a haughty and uncomprehending look as he passed, and Saito retreated back into his office. He didn't honestly think that Kuno would be kept at the station for long once his uncle's lawyers arrived on the scene, but Saito was already mentally composing the letter to them that would recommend Tatewaki Kuno's transfer to another school. One far removed from the objects of his obsession would be in everyone's best interests. And that quality psychiatric care for the whole family would be a sound investment for the Kuno corporate empire to make, particularly in light of the conversation Saito had had with one of the officers who'd responded to the Kodachi drama. Officer Ito had also been a part of the investigations that were taking place on the Kuno mansion, and off the record he spilled to Saito about some of what they'd found - poisons, potions and enough weapons to field a small, rather antiquated army, and that wasn't the weirdest of it all.

For the third time in as many months, Saito listened to the abbreviated whoop of the police sirens as they receded in the distance, then he turned and made his way carefully back to his desk. Miss Watanabe watched him in silent sympathy as he dropped into his chair.

"They had a giant pet crocodile," Saito said numbly. "Kuno's sister kept a giant pet crocodile."

Miss Watanabe lifted the whisky bottle enquiringly, and Saito waved her away.

"There's not enough alcohol in the world for this," he said wearily.

There was still one last thing left that he would have to deal with, and he slowly opened Kuno's student file, staring down at the array of unsettling photos. Unfortunately, he was fairly certain he knew where they had originated from.

"Get me some more aspirin, please," Saito asked his secretary. "And call Nabiki Tendo to my office."


	6. The Hustle

**Duty of Care: The Hustle**

**A Ranma fanfiction**

**By Mintaka14**

Principal Saito fanned the collection of photographs out across the desk and leaned back, waiting for a response. The young woman sitting on the other side of the desk spared them a brief glance and met his gaze, one eyebrow lifted in bland enquiry. She calmly crossed her legs, and waited.

"We do not tolerate borderline pornography in this school," Saito said finally, his voice grim, and Nabiki Tendo's other eyebrow lifted.

"Pornography?" she said innocently. She leaned forward for a closer look, her expression still one of amused indifference. "They're hardly that, are they? In fact, these photos seem quite tasteful. Somewhat suggestive, but well within legal boundaries, I'm sure."

She leaned back again, perfectly at ease. "I don't see what they have to do with me, though, sir."

"Don't you?" He kept his expression still. "You don't find the fact that someone is selling photos of your sister without her permission or knowledge to be a little disturbing?"

Nabiki shrugged. "Those photos don't seem to be doing her any harm. And I really don't know what you want me to do about it, sir. I don't know anything about them."

Saito had dealt with Nabiki Tendo before. He'd dealt with plenty of students like her over the years, the clever ones, so certain that they were the smartest one in the room always, and contemptuous of lesser minds. He glanced down at her student file.

"What are your plans for after high school?" he asked, and Nabiki frowned at the abrupt change of subject.

"My plans?" she said warily.

"Yes. What are you intending to do when you graduate this year?"

"I'm going to sit the entrance exams for Waseda University. Once I've finished my undergraduate degree, I'm planning to get experience while I apply for my MBA. I've got a shortlist of companies I'd like to work with, and I want to go into business analysis and strategy."

She tilted her chin. "I'll be CEO by the time I'm thirty-five."

Saito didn't doubt her.

"Are you planning on living at home while you study?" he asked.

"Are you kidding?" Nabiki responded incredulously. "I love my family, but it's chaos at home, particularly since Ranma and his dad turned up, and then Happosai moved in and now I have to lock up my underwear. It's a complete circus. I've been saving every cent since I started middle school so that I could move out the moment I finish high school."

Saito thought about following up on the odd comment about Happosai and underwear, but shelved it for the time being.

"I notice that you've never applied for permission for after-school employment. With your grades and abilities, it would have been granted."

Nabiki made a dismissive noise. "Why would I waste time slinging plates or scrubbing floors? I've got better ways to fund college, and I've got more time to study. Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?"

"Better ways like exploiting your sister and your houseguest, and selling photos and information on them to the highest bidder? Risking your sister's safety to make a quick profit?" Saito asked, and Nabiki raised her eyebrow again.

"That's a big accusation, sir. I hope you have proof."

With the disturbing interview with Kuno, that look in Akane's eyes, and a mental image of a giant crocodile fresh in his mind, he had the urge to reach across the desk and shake that supercilious smirk off Nabiki Tendo's face, but there was such a thing as professional conduct. And being an adult.

Saito regarded her narrowly. "Miss Tendo, would you say that Tatewaki Kuno was…" he sought for a tactful word "… stable?"

Nabiki snorted. "Have you met him?"

Saito ignored the disrespectful manner.

"Then, not to put too fine a point on it, you have exploited Mister Kuno's unbalanced mental state, and deliberately encouraged his obsessive and dangerous interest in Akane and Ranma."

Nabiki's expression didn't change, but she shifted in her seat.

"I didn't have anything to do with those photos, but this seems like a huge fuss over nothing," she said coolly. "Kuno's never been able to beat Akane, even before Ranma turned up. And Ranma's the best martial artist in the world – just ask him. They can handle Kuno."

"They shouldn't have to!" Saito found himself repeating, with increasing irritation, the same thing he'd been saying since he'd first met Akane and Ranma's families. "I think you seriously underestimate the damage that these schemes have done."

"Damage!" Nabiki interrupted abruptly with a sharp note of bitterness in her voice. "Everywhere Ranma and Akane go, it's chaos and destruction, and do they care who winds up having to clean up after them? The number of times I've had to go study at a friend's place because they were fighting, or I've had pigs and pandas falling out of the sky into my dinner, or Kasumi made me dip into my funds to help fix the house again -" Nabiki drew a short breath. "They _owe_ me!"

"So you admit that you collected what you believe Akane and Ranma owe you by taking photos of them without their permission?"

Saito regarded her with an uncompromising gaze as that complacent smirk returned.

"I'm admitting to nothing. I'm a business woman," she said, crossing her legs again and settling back in her chair. "But I think, sir, that you would find it very hard to prove I've done anything illegal. The only thing I've admitted to here is a certain amount of annoyance with my sister and her fiancé, and if there were any proof that I was involved with those," she gestured at the photos under his hand, "then I'm sure we would be having a very different conversation."

And Saito was sure that was true. Nabiki was nothing if not shrewd, careful and thorough. As he ran the conversation through his head, he had to concede that although she had skated close to it, she had said nothing that amounted to an admission. Nabiki had called his bluff.

There was one more card in his hands, though.

Saito extracted the pages of the statements that Akane and Ranma had handed in earlier. He had highlighted certain passages, and he spun the documents around so that Nabiki could see them. As she read her sister's handwriting and deciphered Ranma's messy scrawl, Saito could see her eyes narrow. He could almost hear her working through all the possible angles in her mind.

"To be clear, I don't think that Akane and Ranma were aware that they were implicating you in anything. They seem to be so used to your schemes, and the general insanity that seems to surround them, that they don't even see anything wrong with it anymore," he said sourly.

"This isn't proof. It's unsubstantiated hearsay, and Akane would never testify against me – she's my sister," Nabiki scoffed.

It was Saito's turn to raise an eyebrow. Nabiki didn't seem to see the irony of her dependence on Akane's sisterly loyalty.

"It's enough to raise doubt in the minds of the university admissions board."

Nabiki's mouth fell open, and for the first time Saito saw her at a loss.

He sighed. "Let me put this very plainly, Miss Tendo. The photos, the selling information, that will all end right now, otherwise I will not be in a position to endorse your applications. It's possible that you could get by on entrance scores alone – you certainly have the results to do so – but I should remind you that we academics talk, and that admissions boards listen to high school principals. And sooner or later, someone is going to ask why you don't have your high school among your letters of recommendation."

"You wouldn't," she breathed, and Saito raised an eyebrow.

"I think you'll find that I most definitely would. I take the welfare of _all_ my students and staff seriously, and that this spider web of schemes affects more people in more ways than you can imagine. And, believe it or not, I am protecting you here, too. I don't want to see your future career cut short because you crossed the line."

"This is blackmail."

"Arguably, yes," he said coolly, "although I think you'll find that you would have a hard time making that case in a court of law. In this instance, there is a nexus between you choosing to continue legally questionable behaviour and me exercising my duty of care to honestly inform the Waseda University admissions board of something that might affect their decision to admit you. I'm sure your business law and ethics classes will go into more detail on the distinctions."

Saito turned his attention to the paperwork in front of him, ignoring the young woman staring at him across the desk with fury and a dawning respect. There was a long silence.

"Well played, sir," she conceded reluctantly.

Saito glanced up at her, and put his pen down for a moment.

"Did it ever occur to you to turn your considerable intelligence and contacts to shutting down the chaos instead of making it worse?" he asked curiously.

"How have I made it worse?" Nabiki scoffed. "Kasumi and I are about the only ones in the whole of Nerima who aren't tearing up our house every second day."

"You still don't think that selling photos of Akane and Ranma has escalated the drama around them, or that you should stop exploiting them like that?"

"What, and cut into my profits?" Nabiki said a little mockingly. "Although I'll have to find an alternative revenue stream now, won't I?"

Saito pinched the bridge of his nose, and picked up his pen again. "That's all, Miss Tendo," he said, turning back to the paperwork. There was a brief silence, then he heard her stand and move towards the door.

"Oh, one last thing, Miss Tendo," Saito said, and Nabiki paused in the doorway. "I don't want to hear anything further about any betting rings in this school, either."

She allowed a sharp grin to flash across her face, her poise somewhat recovered.

"Don't worry, sir," she said. "You won't hear a thing."

As the door closed behind her, Saito groaned. "That's what I'm afraid of."


	7. The Gung-ho Girl

**Duty of Care: the Gung-Ho Girl**

**A Ranma Fanfiction**

**By Mintaka14**

The Chinese girl with the purple hair was there at the gates again for the fifth day running. Principal Saito watched from his office window as the teacher on duty at the gates blocked her path. The girl was rocking the delivery bicycle back and forth with increasing agitation, as if she was about to charge the gates, but when the morning bell pealed out over the school the teacher closed the gates in her face. Saito saw her glance up at the top of the fence and pause for a moment, but eventually the girl turned the bicycle and rode off slowly. Even at that distance he could make out the cat painted around the name of the restaurant on her delivery box, and he frowned thoughtfully.

Saito turned back into his office.

"Miss Watanabe!" he called, and his secretary appeared, precise and prompt as always. "Can you think of any restaurants in the local area that might have a cat logo?"

She raised an eyebrow at the curious request, but said, "I can have a list for you in half an hour, sir."

Saito nodded. "Thank you. That would be appreciated."

Saito tried to tell himself that this was about a student's welfare, but when he left the school grounds after telling Miss Watanabe casually that he was going out for lunch, and ignoring her suspicious stare, he had to admit to himself that this was far more about his own rampant curiosity than his duty as school principal.

The Nekohanten was mostly empty by the time he pushed the door open. There were a couple of salarymen, finishing up their lunches, but the dining room was quiet until a young woman swirled into view at the sound of the bell. Her long, oddly coloured hair swished around her pretty face as she gave him a bright, customer-service smile. Saito had no difficulty recognising her as the girl on the delivery bike.

"Welcome to Nekohanten, sir! We have too, too delicious noodles today. You sit?"

Her broken Japanese was charming, and she gestured him towards a table. He ordered the house special, and when she slid the bowl of noodles in front of him, the smell was heavenly. The taste was even better.

"This is amazing," he said reverently, "I don't think I've ever tasted this combination of spices before. Where does this recipe come from?"

"Is Joketsuzoku traditional recipe," the girl said politely.

"Joketsuzoku. You are from the Amazonian tribe in the Bayankala Mountains?" Saito asked in Mandarin, and the girl looked at him in surprise.

"You know of our people?" she asked, switching to Mandarin herself.

Saito knew what he'd researched after yet another story about Ranma's adventures in China. "I know a little. One of my students has travelled there. Ranma Saotome."

Saito was interested to note the way Shan Pu's head snapped up.

"Airen!" Shan Pu breathed.

He heard a _tap tap tap_, and an elderly woman came through the beaded curtain from the kitchen, leaning on a knobbly cane.

"You know my son-in-law," the old woman said in a voice liked cracked glass. Saito almost swore. _Another_ fiancée?

He stood and bowed.

"Respected Elder," he said formally, and she waved him off.

"You may call me Khu Lon. Is everything satisfactory?" the old woman asked, looking pointedly at the bowl in front of him.

"These noodles are delicious. What's your secret?"

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," the old woman gave a raspy laugh. "We Joketsuzoku know many secrets, and I more than most. You learn a few things over three hundred years."

It was on the tip of his tongue to say something like _You don't look a day over two hundred_, or _Was Death too scared to come and collect you?_ Being around teenagers all the time was having a bad effect on his sense of propriety, but he reined himself in and focused on the purpose of this lunch visit.

"How do you know Ranma?" Saito asked, as if he didn't know.

"The boy defeated my great-granddaughter in combat, and so he must marry her – it is our law."

"Interesting. Is that law often invoked?"

"It helps to keep our people strong, brings fresh new blood into our village. Anyone who can defeat one of our warriors is someone who can be of value, and Ranma is one of the strongest. He will be a powerful asset to the tribe, once he and Shan Pu are married," the old woman gave a salacious grin, "and start having strong babies."

Shan Pu was blushing, but she tilted her chin up proudly, her eyes fierce.

"What happens if one of those victors is too strong for your people to contain?" Saito asked curiously, and the old woman made a strange noise that might have been a laugh.

"That hasn't yet happened in all our history."

"But Ranma left."

"There were… unusual circumstances there. I was unaware of the full story before he left our village after he competed with Shan Pu."

"You mean he was in female form, and you didn't know about the Jusenkyo curse?" Saito guessed, and saw a dark glower crease her face for a moment.

"There were unusual circumstances," she repeated. "But I know now, and the same mistakes will not be made. Ranma will marry Shan Pu and restore her honour, and our traditions will be upheld."

There was no arguing with that implacable statement, but Saito could see a number of problems.

"What if Ranma refuses to go back to China with you to marry Shan Pu? You can't compel him against his will. He's a Japanese citizen on Japanese soil, and here you are subject to Japanese law. Are you seriously willing to risk an international incident by kidnapping an unwilling bridegroom?"

"Oh, son-in-law will be very willing," the old woman said, and it was all the more disturbing for being so matter-of-fact. Her eyes slid to land on the bowl of noodles in front of him. "Our traditional Joketsuzoku recipes have been known to change minds more stubborn than his."

Saito looked at the half-eaten bowl in front of him, and suddenly didn't feel quite so hungry anymore.

"Are you seriously suggesting using mind-altering drugs on one of my students?" he said bluntly, and the old woman gave him a calculating look.

"Now, why would I do that?" she asked with a sly smile. "Are you suggesting that Shan Pu is not enough to entice a teenage boy?"

"Not when the boy has made it clear that his affections lie elsewhere. And not this boy. He's too hard-headed and determined to give in easily," Saito said with a certain measure of exasperation, giving up the pretence of this having been a purely coincidental lunch visit. "I admit that he may not be the most articulate when it comes to expressing his preferences, but I think he's made it pretty clear where his true interest lies."

"Aahh," the old woman made a sound like escaping steam. "So this is what you are truly here for, to persuade us to relinquish Shan Pu's claim on her husband. Did his father send you, or are you here at Tendo's request?"

"I am here out of concern for my student's wellbeing."

Khu Lon was staring at him with a fixed and unsettling attention that suggested that she wasn't buying it.

"I believe that you want the best for your people and your village," he continued, "but continuing to pursue this marriage will only bring destruction down on your village. I doubt that Saotome's parents, or his… other fiancées, will believe that Ranma would go willingly, or that they would accept it without a fight. I think you underestimate Ranma's reaction if he were coerced in any way, or if someone he cares about was threatened. And I think you underestimate the lengths that Akane Tendo would go to protect someone that _she_ cares about."

"Airen _not_ love violent tomboy, love _Shan Pu_! Violent tomboy is obstacle," Shan Pu said fiercely in Japanese, as if the thought had flipped her into the other language. "Obstacle is for killing."

Saito smoothed out his _Are you kidding me?! _face, which was becoming far too common lately, and regarded her calmly.

"I've heard about what happened when you all went to Jusenkyo, and your role in events. I wouldn't say that was a sign of Ranma's indifference towards Akane," he said deliberately in Mandarin. "Or hers towards him. Have they fixed the destruction there yet?"

It was a calculated bluff based on Ranma and Akane's wild stories, and reading between the lines of things they'd both said, but Saito knew it had hit home when he heard Shan Pu's swift hiss of breath. Khu Lon's attention narrowed sharply.

"Great-granddaughter," the old woman said in a voice of foreboding. "Are there perhaps some details you have neglected to mention about that trip?"

"No, Great-grandmother," the girl said, but her eyes slid away. She was breathing a little hard, and her fists were clenched at her sides.

"But all of that is beside the point," Saito said firmly, returning to the point. "If anything should happen to Ranma, his parents and the Tendos might take a direct course of action to retrieve their son, and given what I've learned about those families lately, I'm sure that the fallout would be rather catastrophic, but my duty as Ranma Saotome's high school principal is clear. I would have to ensure his safe return through every governmental and legal channel available, and although I may be only a school principal, I do have many contacts and friends at many levels. If you know anything of our history you will know that our country does not look kindly on the abduction of our citizens by foreign nationals." He lifted the bowl, slurping up another mouthful of noodles with deliberate nonchalance, trying not to think about the possibility of poisons before he set it down again. "I would be desolated to disturb the tranquillity of your beautiful village with so much unpleasant official notice."

"All this effort over one unruly boy?" Khu Lon asked mockingly, and Saito met her eyes.

"All this effort for any of my students," he said flatly.

The old woman regarded him through narrowed eyes, her mouth pursed. Finally, she said, "You have given me much to think about."

As Saito finished the last of his noodles with a sense of fatalistic courage, Khu Lon barked a command, and a young man pushed through the bead curtain leading to the kitchen. The muscled set of his shoulders under his changshan indicated some sort of serious physical training, but the eyes behind his round spectacles were gentle and a little anxious. He looked to Khu Lon with an understandable nervousness.

"The special bottle, now, part-timer," the old woman snapped, and the young man retreated with a rattle of beads. He reappeared and handed Khu Lon a box in which nestled a bottle of wine, then his eyes turned to follow Shan Pu as if it was their natural state. Shan Pu ignored him.

Saito set his bowl down and stood, bowing respectfully to Khu Lon.

"Truly, the noodles of the Nekohanten are well-deserving of the reputation as the best in all of Nerima."

"Flatterer," rasped the old woman, but it didn't sound as though she was displeased. She presented the box to him. "A bottle of my special plum wine for an honoured guest," she added drily. "I have learned much from our meeting. Shan Pu!"

The young woman whipped around from where she had been chastising the young man for something, and she hurried to her great-grandmother's side.

"Show our honoured guest out, great-granddaughter," the old woman commanded, and Shan Pu bowed. The young man trailed behind them as they headed towards the door of the restaurant. Saito watched when Shan Pu spun around to snap something at him in a sharp undertone. The boy pleaded, and was finally dismissed. Shan Pu snatched up a basket and shoved it at his chest, and the young man hugged it, backing away with a forlorn expression written all over his face. When Shan Pu turned her back, the boy slumped and disappeared on his quest.

"He seems like a fine, hard-working young man," Saito observed. "He seems very fond of you."

Shan Pu gave a frustrated growl.

"Mu Tsu is a fool," she said uncompromisingly. "He follows, and follows, and _follows_, no matter how many times I tell him it is hopeless. Even when he knows I… I love someone else."

She looked up to meet Saito's steady and sympathetic gaze.

"One of my students said something very similar recently, in my office," Saito told her gently. "He, too, has been followed by many suitors, even though he has tried to tell them it's hopeless."

She stared at him, her eyes wide. Shan Pu was fierce and stubborn and proud, but she was not stupid. She knew what he was talking about.

"What need has the Pride of the Joketsuzoku for a boy who does not appreciate her true worth?" Saito asked. "This pursuit does you no honour."

He heard the faint inhalation, and saw the glimmer of tears before Shan Pu whirled around in a flurry of purple hair to disappear into the restaurant.

Back in his office, Saito eyed the bottle of plum wine on his desk warily, remembering the old woman's casual references to mind-altering concoctions.

"Miss Watanabe?" he called, and she appeared in the doorway. He gestured at the bottle. "Dispose of this for me, would you?"

She gave him a long look, but reached for the wine, halting at his sudden, nervous flinch.

"Ah… treat it cautiously. Gloves might be wise."

His secretary gave him another flat look as she left the room, but when she came back she had a hand towel which she used to gingerly carry the bottle from the office.

Saito called after her, "Whatever you do, don't let anyone drink it!"

Saito wasn't naïve enough to think that he'd managed to change the minds of that terrifying old woman or her ferociously determined great-granddaughter, but hopefully he had given them something to think about. He seriously hoped that he'd never have to make good on his threat to bring the authorities down on a Chinese village full of fierce female warriors. He didn't even want to think about the levels of crazy that that would involve.

At least this time he'd got a good lunch out of it, Saito reflected sourly, and he pulled a stack of files towards himself to get caught up on the paperwork before the next round of chaos hit the school.


	8. The Lecher

This is the second last chapter of my Ranma one-shot. I know where I'm going with it now, and it went quite a bit further than I'd anticipated when I posted the first part. Thank you so much to everyone who has read, followed, and most especially reviewed Duty of Care. I'd love to know what you think of this instalment, and see you soon for the final chapter.

**Duty of Care: The Lecher**

**A Ranma fanfiction**

**By Mintaka14**

The first hint that there was something wrong was the sound of screaming coming from the locker rooms in the recently decontaminated gym. Principal Saito shouldn't have been able to hear anything at that distance, but the screams were deeply outraged, swelling in number, and approaching fast. Saito hurried out of the office and through the reception area, followed by his secretary and a curious crowd of staff and students.

Outside, something shot overhead, cackling madly, and a mob of girls in various states of school uniform and gym kit thundered into the courtyard. Some of them were wielding hockey sticks and baseball bats and dumbbell weights with murderous fire in their eyes.

"What a haul! What a haul!" a geriatric voice gloated.

Something soft rained down out of the sky to land on him, and Saito peeled it off his head, recoiling when he realised that it was a bra.

Behind him on the steps, Ranma Saotome's voice said, "Aw, _crap_!"

Saito turned, the bra still in his hand.

"Do you know what that… thing was, Mister Saotome?" he asked. _Please, no more fiancées,_ he added in a silent prayer.

"That's… my master," Ranma admitted reluctantly and with deep and intense loathing. "Happosai. Master of the School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, wanted in four countries, _not _wanted in seven, and total lecher."

"Right, I need to call the police."

"They won't be able to do anything," Ranma said dismissively. "The police never catch him, and if anyone does manage to get their hands on him and lock him up, he's back out five minutes later and worse than ever."

Underwear rained out of the sky like confetti, settling in the trees and shrubs, and one of the students gawking at the spectacle narrowly avoided concussion when a girl in gym kit heaved a dumbbell at the source of the chaos. Saito caught a glimpse of a tiny man with a face like a shrivelled old apple, swathed in the black garb of a ninja with a cloth knotted stealthily under his nose, as the lecher attempted to faceplant into the cleavage of a student. There was a shriek, and she swung a fist that batted him away, but he rebounded with a happy cackle and lunged after another girl.

Saito was once again in the murky position of taking a student into his confidence on professional issues, but he had long ago come to the conclusion that this was far outside the educational handbook, and he regarded himself as too pragmatic to reject advice from an expert. And when it came to martial arts or dealing with the Furinkan level of crazy, Ranma was undoubtedly an expert.

"How do we stop him?" Saito asked, his attention on the chaos of screaming girls.

"We can't," Ranma said. "But it'd help if we could get him to stop touching any of the girls, and got his … treasures… away from him. He draws power from them."

"He what?" Saito shook his head. "Never mind. I need to get the girls out of here, power or not."

A balding cannonball bounced through the courtyard, too fast to follow, and skirts and shirts flipped up in his wake. The outraged shrieks jolted Saito out of his funk. He turned swiftly to Miss Watanabe on the steps behind him.

"Round the girls up," he commanded her. "Get them into the locker room, and lock it down. No windows open, bar the doors, keep that creep out and no one leaves until I tell you it's safe."

She was nodding and moving with grim purpose as he turned to issue the next set of instructions.

"Back to class!" he barked at the spectators. "Teachers, follow your protocols!"

"But he's got my undies!" someone protested, and Saito turned swiftly.

"Clear the courtyard!" he repeated sharply. "We'll deal with that later."

As the courtyard emptied of students, and the girls disappeared, the elderly lecher bounded after them and doors slammed in his face. Underwear of every shape and colour lay scattered everywhere, festooning the trees and draped over the steps like strange festival decorations, and Happosai scrabbled to collect them back into his limp bag.

"My treasures!" he moaned.

"Collect the underwear!" Saito ordered the boys still left in the courtyard. Some of them turned to stare at him, their faces turning a deep red.

"But…"

"We can't touch the…"

"Do it!" Saito growled. He was busy scooping up everything within reach before the little old man could get to them. Some of the more hardy boys were following suit, and if there were a few giggles and whispered crude jokes, Saito ignored them. He'd deal with that later.

Happosai was getting more and more frantic as his pretties disappeared, chasing after the boys who had armfuls of underwear. In the middle of tugging another bra out of a tree, Saito found himself rolling his eyes. Was this what his life had become? In all his years of training and teaching, in all the years of student pranks and practical jokes, he'd never yet considered the idea that he'd wind up fishing the undergarments of the entire female population of the school out of the shrubbery.

"My mother wanted me to be an accountant," he muttered.

Ranma was darting around the courtyard, waving a bra in front of his lecherous master every time the old man got close to one of the boys collecting up the underwear.

"Nyah, nyah! Come and get it, you old freak!"

Happosai seemed to be getting more and more angry as Ranma taunted him, but the boy kept him too busy to realise that the courtyard had emptied of students and lingerie until it was too late. Ranma tipped something out of his sleeve into the cup of the bra he was holding and whirled the bra swiftly overhead. He let it go, and Happosai followed it with a leap that caught at the garment just as it exploded in a shower of sparks.

Ranma landed beside Saito, his eyes fixed on the sparks still drifting out of the sky. A puff of dust rose just outside the school gates.

"That won't hold him long," the martial artist said. There was a grim look in the boy's eyes. "He'll be back in a minute."

"You blew him up, and he'll be back in a minute?" Saito asked in disbelief. He decided not to mention the fact that Ranma had had explosives hidden up his sleeve, clearly in breach of school rules. "Then how do we stop him?"

"We can't."

"What do you mean, we can't stop him?" Saito said sharply.

"I mean, I can't best him in a straight-out fight." It sounded like the admission was being wrung out of Ranma by extreme physical torture. "I knocked him out a little bit once with the Hiryuu Shoten Ha technique."

"Dragon's Heaven Blast? Can you use it now?"

"Sure, if you don't mind turning the school into a smoking crater. Although I don't know if the old goat would fall for it again, and anyway, he still survived it."

"We don't want to kill him," Saito protested, and Ranma gave him a look.

"Don't we? It's probably the only way to get him to give up chasing girls and stealing undies."

"There's got to be another way."

Ranma subjected that to some thought. "The Eight Treasures of the Deadly Five Yen Piece technique slows him up sometimes."

"Then do that!"

But Ranma was shifting awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. "I can stop that technique, but I never actually learned how to do it."

"Then who does know it?"

"Other than the old goat there, the only one I know who knows that technique is Miss Hinako."

"Can you contact her?"

A strange look crossed Ranma's face. "Ooh, no, you don't want to get her involved."

"Is this Miss Hinako that dangerous?"

"Yeah… well, she's nice enough," Ranma equivocated. "When she's a kid."

"When she's a kid?" Saito asked in spite of his better judgement.

"She sorta… she's not always little…" Ranma made a vague gesture at chest height that explained nothing, and Saito noted a red flush of embarrassment creep up the boy's neck. "And she's sorta mean when she's big, and she never knows when to stop. Let's just say, if you get her here you're going to have a whole lotta problems and a whole lotta kids passing out all over the place."

Saito heaved a sigh. "Right. Are there any other options?"

"Well, Pantyhose Taro got him once. Knocked the old creep out for hours."

"I don't think we want to bring him back here," Saito said with a shudder. He shot a quick glance at the front gates and the newly repaired brickwork.

"And Rouge managed to flatten him when she changed into that Asura demon," Ranma added, his brow creased in an effort of memory.

"Asura demon? No, never mind. Is there anything that will work against this Happosai that won't destroy the school or harm my students?"

It was a bit worrying that Ranma needed to think so hard about that. Saito could see a deep crease forming between the boy's brows.

"The best we can do is slow him up, get him out of the school, and hope he doesn't come back."

"So I have a sexual predator loose in the school, and there's no way to stop him?"

"He won't hurt the girls," Ranma said, and he sounded oddly defensive for some reason. "He'll destroy any guys who get in his way, but he won't hurt the girls. Just gropes them a bit. The old creep never even fights back if they catch him."

Saito turned a disbelieving look on him. "'Just gropes them a bit'?" he repeated incredulously. "This master of yours has sexually assaulted dozens – perhaps hundreds – of women and girls, and you think that's not hurting them?"

Ranma's look of confusion left Saito tempted to give the boy a shake.

"Do you appreciate it when someone gropes you?" he asked pointedly. "You've spent the past year or so fighting off boys and girls in both your forms who think that it's okay to grab at you whenever they feel like it. And I know that you're aware that Miss Tendo is in counselling to help her deal with the trauma of her experiences."

The dawning look of realisation skewed into an expression of horror, and finally settled into cold anger as a tiny, black-clad figure bounded over the gate and started towards the gym and the girls' locker room, cackling with lecherous glee. Happosai shot over their heads, and Saito started after him with Ranma on his heels.

The boy veered towards a tap, turning it on himself, and Saito saw the transformation run like water over him. Black hair melted into red, the body shrinking and shifting in clothes that suddenly didn't fit.

"Right," said a voice that was a determined treble. "Let's do this."

"What are you doing?" Saito asked, and Ranma turned big, blue eyes on him.

"It's the one thing I can guarantee will stop the old freak in his tracks," Ranma explained, as if it should be obvious. "Girls and underwear. So if I give him that, then I can take the old lecher down for long enough to get him out of the school. After that, well, I'll have to figure something out. But I'm not going to let him mess up anyone else."

"You're going to _let_ him grope you?" Saito asked.

"Better me than Ak… anyone else. Unless you've got a better idea, sir," Ranma said with a bit of a snap in his… her… voice. "It's always worked before."

"Always? Have you had to do this often?"

Ranma snorted. "School of Anything Goes, remember? I do whatever it takes to win, even if it means letting that old lecher feel me up."

"Does your father know?" Saito asked, horrified. Surely Ranma's father would draw the line at training with a master who sexually assaulted his son, if he knew.

"Know?" Ranma made a derisive noise. "He's usually the first one to throw the bucket of cold water at me if he thinks it'll get him out of trouble with his master."

"Tomorrow we're going to have a little chat about bodily autonomy," Saito said grimly. "Perhaps I need to make this a part of the regular curriculum. No one is getting groped," he snapped as Ranma was undoing the top button of her uniform.

"You don't get how tough the old goat is," Ranma said in frustration. "I've fought him. My dad's fought him. We ganged up on him with Mr Tendo, and blew him up with the Happo Fire Burst, and that didn't stop him. There's not much that slows him up, and he holds a grudge like you wouldn't believe. He already has it in for me, so it's not going to make a difference if I make him even more mad, and there's no way I'm going to let Ak… one of the girls be the bait again."

They'd reached the doors of the gym, and Saito could hear the old lecher bouncing through the basketball court, giggling to himself.

"Just… if he starts glowing, run like hell. Or grovel," the boy-turned-girl added as they spotted their quarry. "He likes people grovelling."

They caught up just as Happosai bounded gleefully towards the girls' locker room, and Ranma took a purposeful step forwards, hands raised to her uniform again.

"No one is getting groped," Saito repeated decisively. "This is my school, and my responsibility, and you _will_ get detention if you don't put your shirt back on and step back."

"You were okay with letting me take down Kodachi," Ranma muttered.

"I accepted that you were the only one with the skill level and knowledge to deal with that situation," Saito said drily. "Are you telling me that you are the only female in the school, or the only person capable of taking their clothes off, if it came to that?"

There was silence.

"If I were to ask, or even permit, any of my students to expose themselves and submit to sexual harassment then I would be fired and face criminal charges for malpractice, and rightly so. Now, stay back. If your master sees you right now, it could complicate things in ways we don't want."

Miss Watanabe stood near the door, the key in her hand as they drew closer. Saito broke into a run and swung in front of the wizened master, blocking the doors to the girls' locker room. He stared down at the little old man, and even he could feel the _chi_ force begin to gather as the lecher glared at him. It seemed like the air around Happosai crackled.

"You _dare_ to stand in my way?" the old man growled.

A monstrous apparition of Happosai swelled to engulf the space, looming far above Saito in the rafters of the gym. The air turned dark and snapped with static.

"You _dare_?!"

Saito stared up at the booming monster, his mouth hanging open. This… this was… _Ridiculous._

Saito was forcibly reminded of the cheesy B-grade movie he'd watched as a kid of a patently fake Godzilla destroying cardboard Tokyo.

"I am not a martial artist or a fighter," he informed the menacing Battle Aura resolutely, "but I am the principal of this school, and I will not allow you to harm or threaten any of my students."

There was a roar, and the Aura rushed at him. Saito felt his hair blow back with the force and his coat rippled around him. He swayed on his feet. Beside him he heard his secretary's faint shriek and under the howl of the Aura there was the sound of buttons hitting the linoleum floor. Miss Watanabe's blouse fell open to reveal a surprisingly lacy bra.

The Battle Aura collapsed like a sandcastle in the tide.

"Swe-eeto!" the old man cried, launching himself with outstretched hands.

Saito grabbed the nearest object he could lay hands on. There was a resounding _clang_ as Saito swung the fire extinguisher and cold-cocked the airborne lecher. For a long moment, he stared down at the pitifully tiny heap of unconscious elderly martial artist, then slowly and carefully Saito put the extinguisher down on the floor beside him.

"Good lord, have I killed him?"

He reached for his phone, feeling decidedly disjointed, and hit the emergency services on his speed-dial. Once again, the ambulances and the police would be on their way to the school. Did they offer frequent-flyer points for emergency services? Over the crowd of students spilling out of the locker room, he heard Ranma's feminine voice say dismissively, "Feh. He'll be fine."

Saito turned his head to look at the red-haired girl, and Ranma shrugged. "My pops and Mr Tendo stuffed him in a barrel, chained him up and shoved him down a cave full of dynamite, and sealed him in once. A decade or so later, he was back stronger than ever."

Saito shuddered.

Attempting to rally his thoughts, he turned to where Miss Watanabe was trying to gather the shreds of her shirt around her, and he beckoned one of the shocked teachers over.

"See if you can find… I don't know, maybe the drama department might have something Miss Watanabe can wear for now, just until the police get here to take our statements." He took off his jacket, and slung it around her shoulders. "Sayuri, sorry about this, but the police are going to need to talk to you. The moment they're done, I'm sending you home early. Use the school credit card to get yourself a new shirt."

She tugged his jacket closer around her exposed lingerie, her face fiery red as she ignored the students still milling around.

"What about you, sir?"

Saito sighed.

"I'm going to keep an eye on this one here until the police get here, and then I'm going to have a little sit down."

He left it to his staff to round up the students still milling around, to relocate the collection of underwear and redistribute it to the blushing owners, and to herd everyone back into the classrooms. Saito was fairly certain that there would be little work accomplished for the rest of the day, but he couldn't find it in himself to care at that point. The police came, the ambulance arrived, and Happosai was bundled away.

Out of all the flabbergasting moments of the day, though, the most disconcerting was possibly the moment when Ranma, back in male form again, had sidled up to him, checking to make sure that no one was close enough to hear, as Saito headed towards his office.

"Thanks," the boy mumbled, barely audible, and Saito had stared at him. "For, you know, not…" Ranma made a gesture in the direction of his chest. "Mostly, everyone just expects me to be okay with it. I … just…" he stumbled to a halt. "Thanks, sir."

Embarrassing confession over, Ranma recovered his customary sangfroid and swaggered off, his hands in his pockets. Saito was finally free to retreat to his office and close the door behind him.

Some time later, Saito carefully put down his phone and swivelled to stare at the computer screen and the blank search space. The news had been bad. Very bad. There had been an explosion at the precinct holding cells, and now there was a hole in the wall and a distinct absence of elderly martial arts master.

Saito typed idly in the search bar and went back to staring blankly as the results came up.

"Sir?"

Miss Watanabe came into view. She was wearing a massive shirt that looked like it had been scavenged from the drama club's last performance of Beauty and the Beast, and cheap, shiny satin and lace billowed around her, spilling over the hand holding a glass of whisky. She was still carrying the bottle in her other hand.

"Sir, what are you looking up?" she asked in the kind of voice one would use with a toddler on the edge of an emotional meltdown.

"Just checking up on remote retirement locations," he said vaguely, and flipped through another screen of search results.

"Are you thinking of retiring?" Miss Watanabe asked apprehensively.

"Retiring, relocating, going into witness protection…"

She shoved the glass into his hand, and he downed it in a swallow.

"Are you going to be alright, sir? Should I stay?"

Saito waved a hand. "I'm fine, I'm fine. You go home, you've had a rough day. You didn't have to stay so late," he chided, but Miss Watanabe just sniffed at that.

"I'm not as fragile as that, sir. And you needed me here."

Saito didn't bother to deny it. Miss Watanabe shook out her ruffles.

"Now, is there anything else you need, sir?"

Saito shook his head and turned back to the screen.

"Then I'll say goodnight. Don't stay too late. You've had a rough day, too, sir."

His secretary turned to go.

"Just… Leave the bottle here," Saito said. "I may need a few more drinks. And if that freak comes back looking for me, I can hit him with it."


	9. Graduation Day

**Duty of Care: Graduation Day**

**A Ranma Fanfiction**

**By Mintaka14**

"Miss Tendo, Mister Saotome."

They turned at the sound of Principal Saito's voice, and he found himself smiling broadly as he handed them the envelopes. He already knew what was in them, but it was a pleasure to watch the looks on their faces shift from apprehension to disbelief to joy as the contents sank in.

"We got in!" Akane gasped, her pretty face lighting up. "Full scholarship, we did it!"

She flung her arms around Ranma's neck, laughing, and Saito's smile grew wider as the dark-haired martial artist turned a brilliant red. Although, Saito noticed, he didn't pull away. In fact, he seemed to be hugging her closer.

"Hokkaido University," Akane sighed happily.

Ranma was looking somewhat poleaxed, but Saito couldn't tell if that was from the news or the girl in his arms.

"Yeah," the boy said, sounding stunned. He started to grin, and it spread as he looked down at the letter in his hands again.

Saito had suggested to the pair that all application and scholarship correspondence should be directed through the school. He had not mentioned the possibility of sabotage.

He could tell when their families were approaching from the way that Ranma and Akane practically jumped apart. Akane had a huge blush spreading over her face that would have been a complete giveaway if her father was actually perceptive, and Ranma was looking anywhere but her as the Tendos drew closer.

Akane's father would stop every so often to exchange portentous and self-important greetings with the other town councillors who were there. Kasumi, however, seemed to have a smile and a word for almost every person they passed. She stopped to speak to Mrs Nakamura who ran a fish stall at the market, and had a gentle smile for Mr Yamato, the local drycleaner. She even seemed to know the Tanakas who owned the adult lifestyle shop near the station.

Saito met the sharp eyes of the middle Tendo sister, and she gave him an almost respectful bow.

"Nabiki Tendo. Are you enjoying terrorising the professors at Waseda?" Saito asked with dry humour. She quirked an eyebrow.

"They're not as much of a challenge as you, sir."

He turned his attention to Soun Tendo, who was visibly tearing up at the sight of his youngest daughter clutching her graduation certificate. Kasumi had her hand gently on his arm.

"Mr Tendo, I'm so glad your family could be with us today. You must be so proud of Akane," Saito said, and repressed a sigh as Soun overflowed with excessive emotion. In between the sobs, he thought there was something about _her mother_ and _my little girl_, but it was hard to make out the words. Saito wondered, not for the first time, how the man was able to hold it together enough to sit on the town council. He also wondered if this explained a few of the council decisions that he'd questioned in the past.

"Your daughter has been a pleasure to teach. Akane has shown so much tenacity in both her academic studies and her martial arts, and she has a bright future ahead of her."

"My little girl will be such a wonderful wife and mother, just like my Natsumi," Soun sobbed, and Saito gave him a hard stare that the man didn't even notice. "If only she could be here to see her daughter, to see the grandchildren Akane and Ranma will give us."

Saito shot a quick glance at Akane, who looked like she was going to explode. Her hand was gripping her graduation certificate too tightly, and it was starting to crinkle around the edges. Ranma surreptitiously brushed her other hand holding the Hokkaido envelope with his fingertips, and she sucked in a deep breath, letting it go in a hiss.

"Now, daddy," Kasumi said gently, "you remember you agreed that you would wait until after all their other commitments were sorted out before you started planning a wedding again."

Soun's tears had disappeared as if a tap had turned off. "But Kasumi, it's been months since we've seen any sign of Shampoo or Ukyo."

"Still, it doesn't do to rush these things," Kasumi said with a bit more steel in her voice.

"The sooner Ranma and Akane get married and join our families as we've always planned, the sooner Ranma can carry on the martial arts traditions of our school and they can give us grandchildren," Soun was almost whining now.

"Akane isn't going to take over the dojo?" Saito interjected, as if he didn't know Mr Tendo's answer. "She's a smart girl with a lot of drive, and she's a talented martial artist. She would be perfect for the role, if she wanted it."

Saito saw the flash of hurt in Akane's eyes when her father gave an indulgent laugh. His own eyes dropped briefly to the envelope she had hidden in the folds of her skirt. Soun Tendo was going to find out before too long that his daughter had her own plans, and Saito, remembering the past year of conversations and counselling with Akane, wished he could be there to see it when that happened.

"Akane has some good ideas about marketing the dojo," Nabiki said, sounding bored and disinterested. "She's thinking about starting up women's self-defence classes too."

She became aware of Saito's sharp look, and Kasumi's gentle interest.

"What? We're sisters, we've talked about things, and I listen. If you want to know what makes people tick, you learn to pay attention," she said almost defensively.

Soun's frown of confusion was gathering as he started to realise that something was happening outside of his little script for the future. Before he could say anything, his eldest daughter's hand closed a little more firmly on his arm, drawing him away.

"Daddy, remember you needed to talk to Mr Fukuhara," she said with soft inflexibility.

As the Tendos moved away, Saito glanced at Akane and Ranma, who were still close by and said quietly, "I take it you haven't informed your parents about your plans yet."

"No, not yet," Akane said. Ranma snorted.

"Given the circumstances, I think that's wise," Saito told them. "Have you had any thoughts about how you're going to manage the move to Hokkaido?"

"We've got a few plans in place," Akane told him. "Nabiki is going to help us – she's got a few contacts, and this time I think she's really genuine. She hasn't even charged us."

"I still think we need to keep an eye on her," Ranma muttered, but without any heat. "I know she's promised not to say anything, but what's to say she'll keep her promise if someone makes her a good offer?"

Akane huffed at him. "Nabiki's still my sister. And she may have her faults, but she never breaks her word once she's given it. It's part of why people keep doing business with her. You just have to be careful what she's actually promising." A slightly wicked smile tugged up the corners of her mouth. "And besides, I happen to have some leverage this time."

Saito found himself nodding in approval. The optimist in him might have wanted to believe that Nabiki had taken to heart their conversation in her final year of high school, and embraced sisterly love and loyalty. The pragmatist in him accepted that it was wise to have a few good cards in your hand when dealing with Nabiki Tendo.

They heard Genma Saotome's voice rumble over the dissipating crowd, and Saito saw Ranma and Akane tense up again as Ranma's father muscled his way towards them with his wife picking her way daintily behind him. She still had her sword strapped to her back, and it was drawing more than a few startled glances from the other parents.

Saito pretended he hadn't noticed it, and offered them each a polite, restrained bow.

"Mr Saotome, Mrs Saotome, thank you so much for coming today. You must be so proud of Ranma; he's worked very hard to achieve excellent results and graduate today, in spite of all obstacles." Saito couldn't resist the subtle dig, but they seemed to miss it.

Ranma's mother reached up to straighten her son's collar, her eyes misty.

"So manly," she said huskily, and Ranma ducked his head.

"Aw, mum," he said in pleased embarrassment, and staggered as his father clapped him on the back.

"About time to settle down and take over the dojo," the older martial artist harrumphed. Ranma clutched at the Hokkaido University envelope that he held out of sight at his side, and Saito saw the boy swallow and tense.

Saito narrowed his eyes, and made a mental note to track down a couple of former school friends who he knew were teaching at Hokudai to enlist their help for Ranma and Akane. It was above and beyond what he did for most students, but he had a feeling that this pair could be extraordinary if they were given a chance to strike out on their own, and they weren't likely to get that chance if someone like him didn't step in.

And besides, a small, ignoble part of him admitted that it would be deeply satisfying to foil the plans of their lunatic parents.

Ranma's dark blue eyes had morphed from reflexive panic to a look of hard purpose that Saito remembered from the last time the martial artist had faced down a foe on school grounds. He suddenly seemed tensed for battle.

"We'll do that when we're good and ready, and not before," the young man growled.

His father began to swell with ire, until Nodoka put her hand on his arm.

"Now is not the time or place to discuss this," she said with implacable gentleness, and Genma deflated visibly. With practised diplomacy, Saito pretended that he hadn't seen anything of the brief show of family tension.

He exchanged a few more meaningless pleasantries, and then the Saotomes moved away to join the Tendos near the gym entrance. Before Ranma and Akane could join them, Saito spoke.

"It's been a true pleasure to teach the both of you," he told them, and Ranma gave him a disbelieving look.

"Even with all the stuff that's happened?"

And Saito allowed himself a genuine grin in response.

"Nothing worthwhile is ever easy. I can honestly say that you are the most interesting students I have ever had in this school," Saito said, twinkling at them. "I'm looking forward to hearing about what you do from here."

Akane's bright smile lit up again. "Thank you, sir, for everything you've done."

"I'm going to university," Ranma said, sounding dazed at the thought.

"Yes, you are," Saito agreed. "I always knew you were up for any challenge."

The dazed look cleared a little, and Ranma grinned at him.

Akane inevitably fell into step beside Ranma, and Saito knew they probably didn't even realise what they were doing. As they followed their families out the door, they were bickering again, but Saito saw the way that Akane coloured as she looked up at the dark-haired martial artist, and the way Ranma's grin lit up as he leaned, ever so slightly, in towards her.

Saito shook hands with more parents, greeted and congratulated students, and as the gym cleared, leaving a disordered welter of displaced chairs and the odd program or two, Saito let himself relax a little. He tipped his head back, staring up into the rafters. Really, the contractors had done an excellent job on the repairs – he couldn't see any signs of the damage anymore.

Saito hadn't heard anything further from the Kuno family after receiving the official letter and documents advising him that Tatewaki Kuno would be transferring to another school, and he had spared a moment of pity for the principal of whichever school that was. It was a testament to the wealth and power of the family that no hint of the findings at Tatewaki and Kodachi Kuno's family home had made it into the news, and the reporting on Kodachi's little adventure at Nerima High School had died down with suspicious rapidity.

Ukyo Kuonji had not graduated with the rest of her class. Welfare had taken her into custody when they had been unable to trace any of the girl's family, but she had disappeared, leaving several outstanding charges of property damage.

There had been no further sign of either the yeti-ox-crane-eel creature or the strange boy that turned into a piglet, and Akane had remained tight-lipped, still crackling with fury, whenever the subject of pigs came up.

The past year had been considerably quieter. Whole months had gone by at a time without any visitations from cursed creatures seeking vengeance, or obsessed fiancées, and if Ranma and Akane were still dealing with such things, at least it didn't follow them onto the school grounds.

Saito took the quiet with a sense of relief, but he did keep one eye open in case Happosai returned. From everything Ranma had said, his elderly master had a very, very long memory for grudges.

After a further illuminating conversation with Ranma about his master, Saito had taken the precaution of making it widely known that he now kept a spray bottle labelled 'Woman Repellent' on his desk. He had looked into obtaining the powder that Ranma had talked about, but after hearing about the lengths that Ranma had had to go to in order to get his hands on it, Saito had decided in the end that coloured water and bluffing was good enough. Most of the students thought it was a hilarious joke. Some parents looked askance at it, and Miss Watanabe sniffed every time her eyes fell on it, but so far Saito hadn't seen any sign of the old lecher near his school again, and that was worth any amount of personal embarrassment that he might feel.

It could also be that the old goat had decided to leave the country, or been finished off somehow by one of his victims, but Saito wasn't that hopeful.

Saito stood at the window of his office, watching the last graduating students wander out the gates. One of them, his tie unravelled and his school coat loose, turned to grab the hand of the girl brushing short dark hair out of her eyes. The boy shot a quick look around the emptying courtyard to make sure they weren't being watched, and pulled her in for a kiss before he tugged her into a run to catch up with their families.

Miss Watanabe came up behind Saito and handed him one of the two glasses of champagne she was holding. He raised his, and they clinked their glasses together in celebration.

"We survived another school year," Saito said.

Miss Watanabe took a mouthful of champagne. "It's going to be a little dull around here next year," she said, her gaze on Ranma and Akane disappearing in the distance.

"I certainly hope so," Principal Saito said with deep and sincere feeling. "I'm not sure my liver could survive much more excitement."

**The End.**


End file.
